Maids and Merchandise
by audreyii-fic
Summary: Wherein Rumpelstiltskin doesn't modify his deal with Cora, and Belle's responsibilities at the Dark Castle include the girl who will cast the curse to end all curses. (FTL AU. Rumbelle.)
1. Prologue

_**A/N**: This concept has been eating me alive since the moment I watched The Miller's Daughter, and so do I thus dive back into the murky waters of multi-chapter fanfiction. May God have mercy on my soul._

_Oh, and canon timeline? What canon timeline? I do what I wanna do. Because FREEDOM._

* * *

_**Maids and Merchandise**_

* * *

_the child of my body / the flesh of my soul / will die in returning the birthright he stole_  
_**Heather Dale**, "Mordred's Lullaby"_

* * *

_"My firstborn child?"  
"She **is** quite important."_

All magic comes with a price.

One can pay in piecemeal - little wounds dripping blood as the years march by - or one can advance a sacrifice large enough to power a lifetime of sorcery. One can pay with everything one has or ever could.

One can pay with one's heart.

This is why it costs Cora nothing to ease her labor. A spell for painlessness; a spell for speed; a spell for fortitude. At dinner she feels the telling gush of wetness soak her skirts, and the sun has only just set when her chambers are rent with a newborn's wails.

"A girl, my lady." The midwife's round, doughy face is sympathetic as she relates the news from between Cora's legs; the king, prince, and castle were hoping for an heir to this branch of the royal line, and clearly she assumes the mother was as well. Nobles do not pray for daughters.

_"She?"_  
_ "Yes, I see the future. Weren't you listening?"_

Cora adds false resignation to her voice as she says, "So be it. Clean her, then report to Prince Henry that his wife has borne him a healthy babe - but that I'll not see him till morning. I wish to be alone with my child."

The servants scurry to obey. No one in the land dares question the miller's daughter now.

Another spell to dissipate the stench of sweat and afterbirth; one more to dry the milk within her breasts. She will not need it.

She spends the next hour examining the red-cheeked, squalling infant as it squirms in her lap, curious about this queer otherness her body has brought forth. She unwraps tight lace swaddling to count the fingers and toes. She verifies the gender. She touches the downy hairs of its legs. She prods the severed cord that once bound them together. She watches its lips smack uselessly at empty air.

Cora suspects that this is when a mother is meant to fall in love.

She thanks the Gods she has no heart with which to do so.

Another hour goes by. Then another. Cora begins to wonder whether she has been forgotten or whether he is simply distracted; but whatever the reason, the clock has struck twelve before the Dark One appears silently as a shadow at the end of her four-poster bed. "Sorry I'm late," he lilts, tapping his nails against the mahogany footboard, scales reflecting candlelight. "So many transactions to complete, so little time. I _do_ hope you haven't grown attached."

In a way, she admires how he makes no effort to hide his malice. He wants to torture. He wants this will be as painful as possible.

But it is a wasted effort. Cora has felt him clutching her hips, heard him moaning her name; he cannot intimidate her, no matter how many layers of dragon leather he hides behind. "There's no point in attaching oneself to merchandise," she replies coolly.

This brings him up short, though he covers it with a high giggle that makes shivers run down Cora's spine - not an entirely unpleasant sensation. "Marriage hasn't changed you, I see!" Every inch of him drips with poisoned sarcasm. "Nice to know a man can rely on _something_ to remain constant in such an unpredictable world as this."

"You are not a man."

A pause, then: "Quite right. Good of you to remind me." His unnatural, reptilian gaze leaves Cora's face to settle on the mewling babe in her lap. "That's an impressive set of lungs you've spawned," he says, and a person who knew him less might buy the indifference of his manner.

"She's hungry, I think."

"They're _born_ hungry, dearie. Haven't you fed her?"

"Why should I, when she isn't mine?"

The flash of contempt in Rumpelstiltskin's expression makes something ache where Cora's heart used to be. "A fine mother you are," he snaps.

"That hardly concerns you."

She takes no satisfaction in his flinch - though neither does she feel remorse. It is only the truth, after all.

The newborn's wails rise another octave; perhaps it thinks this new voice belongs to someone who will see to its needs. Cora's ears are beginning to hurt. She flicks her wrist, and a wave of shimmering mist softens the screams to a whisper.

Rumpelstiltskin edges around the mattress; there is no spring in his step now, no movement fluttering his hands. He leans in close to the silently sobbing child and hums something indistinct; he peers at each feature, lingering on her nose in particular; his claws touch the baby's palm, which immediately fists around his finger. This innocent action makes his breath catch in his throat, and is followed by the softest _oh_ of an exhale.

"She'll have brown eyes," he observes, "though not the color of yours." His voice drops low and cautious, thick with the accent Cora only ever heard on the darkest of nights, when he would tell her of a wretched past known to no one else living.

She is not capable of being tender, not anymore, but a gentleness she has not felt since her wedding day fills her as she says, "Yes - the same shade as Prince Henry's." He glances up; she reminds him, "It's been more than a year, Rumple."

In that moment, more hatred than Cora realized could exist in a single creature fills the room. The desperate, vaguely wistful craving vanishes; he jerks his hand from the baby's grip and pulls back, looking at it now with something like disgust, as though the helpless infant were a viper who had tried to sink its teeth into his flesh. "Yes, dearie," he bites out, "I _can_ count. Now let's get on with this, shall we?"

A snap of his fingers conjures a carrying basket from thin air. He drops it unceremoniously on the bed; Cora sits up further against the pillows - wincing at an ache in her abdomen too deep for a spell to touch - and settles her child into a nest of cotton blankets. It is a cradle fit for a peasant, not a princess.

"What will become of her?" she asks.

Rumpelstiltskin chuckles, dark and cold. "That hardly concerns you."

The miller's daughter nods, then tucks the blankets just a bit tighter. The baby has exhausted itself with tears; it gnaws despairingly on its tiny knuckles, eyes shut, ribs rising and falling in shuddering breaths. It is likely the last time they will see each other.

Cora still feels nothing in the empty cavern of her chest.

But her firstborn deserves one gift - a gift that only a mother should give. "Her name is Regina," she informs Rumpelstiltskin.

This declaration earns Cora a high, mocking laugh. It reminds her of when they first met in a tower filled with straw and a creaking spinning wheel. "_Regina_. How subtle. But you waste your time; a name will not turn your whelp into a queen."

Cora just smiles. "Names," she says to her former lover, "have power."

Rumpelstiltskin bares his stained teeth in return. "Oh, dearie," he tells her, "_power?_ Is the one thing I can _guarantee_ she'll have."

He and the basket vanish.

Cora counts off five minutes before she screams for the guards.

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein Belle makes a deal and a trinket is retrieved.  
_


	2. Chapter One

_You want to find your son. You _will_ find him. It will not be an easy path. It will take many years - and require a curse. A curse powerful enough to rip everyone from this land._

_You will not cast the curse. Someone else will. And you will not break the curse. Someone else will._

* * *

_ **Ten years later** _

The Dark One is a legend - and as with all legends, the stories change every time they are whispered by old women over winter fires or dramatized by minstrels in the marketplace. He is the _deal-spinner_, the blackest of the black powers; a wave of his hand can level the mountains, a drop of his potion can poison the seas. He snatches maidens from their beds and babes from their cradles. To speak his name is to summon him. To summon him is to risk your very soul.

In girlhood Belle had listened with rapt attention to the tales her nursemaid shared while mending petticoats by candlelight, and naturally, as with any child who grows up surrounded by such anecdotes, she developed her own concepts of the monster's visage. From her youthful imagination grew a straight-backed wraith who towered over even her bookshelves, his broad frame cloaked in flowing robes of ebony, faceless beneath his silken cowl and silent as the grave.

It is thus the imp lounging casually on her father's throne could not be less what Belle has pictured. His voice is reedy and sharp as he mocks their pleas for assistance; when he stands, he's only few inches taller than herself. The ostentatiously-jeweled broach at his throat sparkles. His hands flicker in wide, theatrical gestures. There seems to be no end to his smiles - diabolical though they are.

She is so distracted by trying to reconcile this short, strange, scaly man with her initial expectations that Belle nearly misses it when he demands _her_ as payment for aid against the ogres.

But only nearly.

"No," her father says at once.

"The young lady is engaged," Gaston adds. His muscular arm pulls her away, shielding her protectively - and pointedly. "To me."

If anything, the men's outrage only adds to the Dark One's amusement. Oozing condescension, he retorts: "That would only matter if _I_ wanted to wed her, dearie. Which I don't. Believe me, I'm not looking for _love_." Then he folds his hands at the small of his back, just above the slitted edge of his spiked coat, and regards them expectantly. Daring them to inquire further.

Belle does. This is her fate they're discussing, after all. "So... what _are_ you looking for?"

"Glad you asked!" He dances two steps forward - everyone but her father and Gaston takes two steps back - and very slowly, very deliberately surveys her from curls to slippers. "I need aid with a few rather _specific_ tasks at my estate," he says after a moment, deigning to meet her eyes; his pupils are slitted like a snake's. "Ones that are best suited to a, shall we say... _feminine_ touch."

Gaston's grip tightens with outrage; her father swears through gritted teeth.

"What do you say, dearie?" the Dark One chirps, addressing only her. Light words and light feet, he's not the monster of Belle's imaginings, but danger still radiates off him in waves. "Best decide quickly; I can hear the _beat-beat-beat_ of the enemy's drums, can't you?"

She can.

"Get out," her father snaps. When no one moves, his voice raises to a roar. _"Leave!"_

Their salvation's penetrating gaze shifts to Maurice, and something closer to a genuine smile playing about his lips. "Well, well - sacrificing an entire town to spare your child. You're a better parent than most." Then he twitters, seriousness gone, and adds: "_Terrible_ king, of course, but better parent. I'm sure it will bring _great_ comfort to your villagers as the ogres tear them limb from limb."

A leaden silence hangs in the hall.

Finally the Dark One shrugs, casually, as though this is no more than a barter for a skien of spun wool. "As you wish," he says, heading for the battle-battered door. "Enjoy the next few hours; they'll be your last."

Belle is not brave. She's always wanted to be, but wishing does not make it so. The most terrifying thing she's ever done is steal a plate of blueberries from the cook, for which she took a sound tongue-lashing upon being caught. To go with the most powerful sorcerer in the world, who is disinterested in _love_ but desires her_ feminine touch_... well, that's in a rather different category than kitchen thievery.

_Do the brave thing, _her mother always said, _and bravery will follow._

On her back beneath a beast is better than rotting amidst the ruins of her town.

"No, wait," she calls.

And Rumpelstiltskin turns on his heel with a smile. "Yes," he purrs, "I _did_ think you might see things my way."

* * *

The transportation spell makes Belle vomit. It's not a natural thing, for one's flesh and bones to flash from one location to another, and the cold, creeping feel of magic crawling along her skin only increases the sense of vertigo. The silver lining is that she's not eaten today - having been too nervous about the Dark One's impending visit - and so very little comes up as she dry heaves into the grass.

"Watch your dress, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin sounds entirely too amused for her tastes. "You'll never own another like it."

Of course she won't. Probably she'll never wear a stitch of clothing for the rest of her life.

She cannot suppress a shiver that has nothing to do with nausea. But, swallowing back a mouthful of bile, she reminds herself: her sacrifice has saved her village. Hundreds of people will live long and fruitful lives, free from the shadow of war, and just for her, only for her. Surely she has gotten the better end of the deal... no matter what comes next.

It is a steadying thought.

Rumpelstiltskin - what is she to call him? Sir? Master? Dark One? Probably not his true name - is surprisingly patient, rocking back and forth on his heels and twisting his fingers into intricate tangles as Belle fights to regain her equilibrium. At last she manages a deep breath and straightens, ready to take in her new home-

-only to find herself beside the fence of a modest, ramshackle, straw-thatched cottage. Bedraggled chickens peck around a muddy yard; the slanted evening sun turns the side of a nearby barn to reddish-gold. The buildings sit on the edge of a wide, open field, where a cool breeze plays games with grasses standing free of winter snows. There are no neighbors, no village. They must be very far to the south.

"_This_ is your estate?" Belle asks, somewhat bewildered. She'd pictured the Dark One living somewhere... well... darker.

"Why do you ask?" There is an edge of warning to his intonation. "Would it be beneath you?"

She blanches. "No, of course it's not, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply-"

Rumpelstiltskin stares hard at her through hair fallen loose over his face - her words die in her throat - before his nose wrinkles. It takes Belle a moment to realize this means he's entertaining himself at her expense. "Not to worry, dearie," he says, opening the gate with a snap of his fingers, "the Dark Castle is rather more grand than this. We're only here to pick up one of my trinkets before heading home."

"Oh. Right." Belle nearly trips over the hem of her gown following him; had she known she'd be traipsing across wallows posing as gardens, she would have asked to change clothes before leaving home. Too late now. "And- and what trinket are we here for?" she pants, pulling one ruined slipper free of the muck and brushing aside a curious hen.

"You'll see soon enough, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin steps up onto the porch - his boots miraculously mud-free, Belle notes with some bitterness - and raps his knuckles against a warped oak door. "Little pig, little pig," he coos, "let me come in."

A few thuds and a muffled curse come from within the cottage, and then the entry swings wide to reveal a pink-cheeked, pudgy man with thick lips and no neck. He's shorter than both his visitors, and Belle has to admit that, harsh though the comparison is, his upturned, snubbed nose _does _make him look decidedly... porcine. His glare turns to shock as he sees just who is standing on his doorstep. "Ah," he squeaks - oinks, really. "M-Mr. Dark One, sir. What- what a delightful surprise."

"I'm sure it is, dearie, I'm sure it is." Rumpelstiltskin smirks, a malevolent gleam in his eye. "Oh, no need to look so frightened; I've brought you some good news."

"You- you have?"

"Indeed. The best." The smirk widens to a grin. "Your services? Are no longer required."

"What? You- you can't mean that, surely." Beads of sweat pop out on the man's already moist forehead. "We've done everything you asked, _everything_, always we have, the missus and I, we've raised her up good and proper, given her whatever a soul could ask for, you've seen it yourself, girl's never wanted for a thing, not since the very hour you brought her to us, I swear on my sainted mother's grave!" He turns to Belle, and she realizes uneasily that he's about to fall to his knees. "I beg you, milady, have mercy-"

"She's not a lady," says Rumpelstiltskin, cutting the man off with a gesture. Somewhere in the babbling pleas for clemency his expression had shifted from malicious glee to irritation. "Not anymore, that is, so there's no point in throwing yourself at her feet. And what I mean is that our deal is _concluded_, dearie."

The man pauses. "You... it is?" he says after a moment, looking ready to faint with relief. "Truly?"

"Yes. Now do us all a favor: shut up, and bring me what's mine. I don't have all day."

"_Oh_. Yes, yes, of course, of course. She's out with the missus, fetching water from the well." He edges out the side of the door frame, keeping as much distance between himself and the Dark One as possible. "I'll just... run along and fetch her." Rumpelstiltskin nods curtly, and the man sets off running through the yard; he squelches through the mud, nearly kicks a rooster, and falls over his own feet turning by the barn in his efforts to obey Rumpelstiltskin's command as quickly as possible.

Her employer only giggles at the display. "Oh, dear," he says, "I hope he doesn't give himself a heart attack. Though the meat would fetch a pretty price; bacon's always the better for a few extra layers of fat."

"Bacon?" Belle blinks in surprise. "But he's not- he's not _really_ a pig, is he?"

"Not at the moment, but who knows what will happen when he dies. I'll have to check in on the day of his funeral - or roast. Whichever."

"So... he _was_ a pig, once?"

"Indeed. Nasty enchantment, that one. He and his wife were minutes from slaughter." Rumpelstiltskin raises an eyebrow at her. "How do you think I got him to owe me a favor?"

Belle bites her lip.

She shouldn't reprimand a demon.

She really shouldn't.

But.

"I think you got the favor by taking advantage of a desperate person under a curse," she answers tartly. If she is to be with the Dark One for the rest of her life, doing... Gods only know what, she is at least going to make her opinion known. "And I think that's unkind. No, it's _more_ than unkind - it's _cruel_."

Rumpelstiltskin stares, mouth slightly open, for a solid minute. Finally, just as Belle's fairly convinced that _she's_ about to be turned into a pig, the Dark One begins to chuckle. It's a surprisingly normal sound. "You know, dearie," he remarks, "with all this saving villages and running errands, I forgot that we haven't met _properly_." He bends a knee and bows with a melodramatic flourish. "Rumpelstiltskin is my name... and taking advantage of desperate people-" he looks up, back still bent, eyes glinting "-is what I _do_."

She responds with a curtsey born of habit, not esteem. Years of etiquette are not easy to shake. "My name is Belle. And I _don't_."

"You don't _yet_," he corrects. "Life is long, dearie. Very long."

Before Rumpelstiltskin can expand on this unsettling statement - though Belle is half-hoping he won't - the man-pig scuttles back up the path, redder-faced for the effort. An equally hoggish woman follows in his wake - and behind them both, carrying a water pail, follows a girl of perhaps ten. Her eyes are on the ground; the turn of her bow mouth is sullen and obstinate. Two dark brown braids reach past her waist and swing with every step.

"Here she is," calls the man, breathing heavily as he approaches the house. "Hale and hearty as last you saw her."

Tilting his head, Rumpelstiltskin presses his hands flat together and taps his fingers in a little rhythm. Belle thinks he looks like nothing so much as a farmer evaluating a new piece of livestock. "Not plague-ridden, at least," he declares after a moment. "That counts for something."

The girl starts at the sound of his voice, realizes who is standing on her porch - and promptly drops her pail. "You're back!" she says blankly. "They didn't say you were back - it's not my birthday, is it?"

The hoggish woman pales. "Of course it's not, milady," she whispers, fear coating the admonishment. "I've taught you to understand a calendar at the very least, haven't I?" She places a meaty hand on the young girl's back and pushes her forward. "Now be a good lass and show your manners, or his lordship will think we've brought you up wrong."

Thus prompted, the girl sinks into a low, thoroughly inelegant bow; and in spite of her peasant-cut skirts and too short sleeves, Belle can easily see shades of the striking beauty this child will become. "Well met, Rumpelstiltskin," she mumbles, the greeting obviously foreign on her tongue. "It's... it's nice to see you again."

Rumpelstiltskin watches her through narrowed eyes, but says nothing. The only sound comes from the chirping of crickets in the fields. Belle has never found that noise to be soothing; it always makes her feel like she's being watched.

After a moment, the girl turns to Belle; her gaze lingers with bold curiosity over the golden dress and muddy shoes before glancing back to the Dark One. She demands: "Who's that?"

_"Regina!"_ the man-pig hisses.

"What? He's never brought anyone here before."

Her words seem to shake Rumpelstiltskin out of his trance; he sighs in a much put-upon fashion. "It would seem I am doomed to spend today making introductions," he says, waving between them. "Regina, this is Belle. Ah ah ah!" A wagging finger stops the girl's second curtsey. "No need for that, dearie - she'll bow to you, not the other way 'round. She's your new maid."

Belle's mouth drops open.

"I don't need a maid," Regina says to Rumpelstiltskin, regarding Belle with clear skepticism. "That doesn't make sense. Why are you giving me a maid?"

Rumpelstiltskin shrugs as though it's no-never mind to him. "Well, _some_one's got to keep you out of trouble in the Dark Castle," he says nonchalantly. "I'll be training you in magic, not tucking you into bed."

"I- I'm coming live with you?"

"Yes."

"In the Dark Castle?"

"Yes."

"As your apprentice?"

"Yes."

"Today?"

"Yes."

_"Really?"_

Rumpelstiltskin rolls his eyes. "You've yet to learn basic conversational skills, I see." He points at the cottage door; the hinges crack as it slams open. "Pack whatever you see fit and say your goodbyes, dearie - you'll not be returning to this place."

Regina all but sprints into the house; her guardians trail behind, bowing obsequiously as they go, until it is only Rumpelstiltskin and Belle left on the porch.

"That's not a _trinket_," Belle says after a moment. "That's a _child_."

"No difference."

"There's an _enormous_ difference. Where are her parents?"

Rumpelstiltskin's glare of warning is so cold, so fierce, that even Belle cannot bring herself to continue the line of inquiry. "I'm sorry," she says hastily. "It's not my business. I just... it would be nice to know - if I'm to care for her, that is."

"_Care_ for her?" He sniggers and turns to look out over the fields, drumming his claws against the porch rail. "I didn't say anything about _caring_ for her. There's no point in _that_. All I need is for you to look after the girl."

Belle frowns. "I don't understand."

"It's simple, really. There are a lot of nasty things lurking about my estate; she'll need kept from poking her nose in where it doesn't belong whenever I am traveling or managing personal matters. Children are always _insatiably_ curious, and I can't have her getting damaged." The words are bored and dismissive, as though he's instructing her on how to feed a pond full of goldfish. "Oh, and she'll need a bit of rearing: basic education, etiquette and the like. I _do_ presume you understand how to train a noble?"

"I- I suppose I do, yes. I spent some time at the Eastern Palace before the wars."

"Good enough. I doubt she'll need it, but one can never be too careful." He sneers out at nothing. "Names _do_ have power, after all."

Through the open loft window Belle hears the unmistakable sound of items being thrown into a trunk. "Is she to be a courtier, then?"

"Gods, no. That would be a _frightful_ waste of talent. No, I'm going to make her into a sorceress."

"Oh." Belle blinks. "I had no idea you could start training this young." There are a few magicians in Avonlea - or rather, there _were, _before the wars and the rise of the clerics. None of them had been in the same league as the better-known spellcasters of the realm, let alone the Dark One, but even their minor tricks could go terribly wrong. Belle has never heard of anyone studying magic before the age of twenty.

"There's no time like the present, dearie, and she's more than powerful enough for the basics." He waves his hand dismissively. "But don't worry - if her brains start to leak out her ears, I've got a lovely set of rags to help you mop up."

Belle makes a noise in the back of her throat, which causes Rumpelstiltskin to grin and, of all things, tap the tip of her nose. "That one was a quip." His manner is only a harsh mimicry of playfulness. "Not serious."

Belle exhales in relief. "Right."

"_And_ you'll need to look after the estate as well as the girl, of course. You'll serve the meals, clean the Dark Castle-"

"Yes."

"-dust my collection, launder the clothing-"

"Got it."

"Good. I suppose I could manage it all on my own, but, well, I don't _want_ to. It's dull work." He smiles. "As I said, these tasks are better suited to a feminine touch."

It's a testament to the long day that his words take several moments to sink in; when they do, Belle can't stop herself from gaping at him like a fish. "You... _that's_ what you meant?"

Rumpelstiltskin only raises an eyebrow. "Why?" he asks innocently. "Were you expecting something else?" His smile widens as Belle's face grows hot with embarrassment. "Ah, I see. You thought I was _that_ sort of monster, did you?"

"No! I mean, well, yes, but- but I had just-"

"Did you somehow get the wrong impression?" He presses a hand to his heart with an exaggerated expression of offense. "Why must people _always_ be so quick to leap to conclusions?"

"But the way you said it-"

"And your father and your betrothed must have thought the same... well, I suppose you'd best not break our deal, then." He leans in close, so close that his lips nearly brush her ear, and Belle stiffens in instinctive alarm. "I've heard all about the clerics of Avonlea," he snarls. "Try to run away, and I suspect you'll find your old home isn't as welcoming as you might wish."

Not an hour ago she sold herself into indentured servitude, but this, _this_, is the most insulted Belle has ever been in her entire life. "I wasn't planning to run away," she says evenly, refusing to flinch back from the feel of his hot breath against her cheek. The crickets are chirping ever louder. "I promised to go with you, and I don't go back on my word."

She tried not to let the depth of her anger bleed into her tone, but it seems she failed, because when he pulls back the Dark One's expression is honestly perplexed. But before he can speak - if he's even going to speak - Regina appears in the doorway, green cloak tied about her neck. Behind her, the man-pig carries a small trunk.

Rumpelstiltskin glances to Regina. "Is that everything?"

"My dress, my petticoat, my apron, my stockings, my gloves, my other gloves, my hat, my other hat, and the books you gave me on my last birthday," the little girl recites promptly.

"No need for the books, dearie; we'll be going far, _far_ beyond them."

"Oh." She furrows her brow for a moment, then asks, words hinged with hesitation: "Can they come anyway?"

Rumpelstiltskin sighs. "If you insist." He gestures to the trunk; it vanishes in a swirl of purple smoke.

Regina's eyes go wide. "Will you teach me to do that?" she asks excitedly.

"Oh, yes. That, and much more." He looks over the girl's shoulder to the nervously shifting peasants still hovering in the doorway. "Consider your debt repaid," he tells them. "And if you find yourself being fattened for winter slaughter, feel free to call on me. I _might_ even answer."

The peasants can't seem to bow low enough; they also bow to Regina, who only nods back. Belle observes with some discomfort that the couple makes no move to embrace this girl they must have raised from infancy, nor vice versa. It makes her long for her father. She didn't get to say goodbye. Not really. She'll never see him again, and she didn't get to say goodbye.

She reminds herself that her village is safe. That is all that matters.

A twist of the Dark One's wrist, and the cottage, the fields, the world melt down into darkness.

Belle feels queasy all over again.

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein Regina is stubborn and Belle can't find the linen closet._


	3. Chapter Two

After two weeks in her new home, Belle wonders - in her gloomier moments, anyway - if perhaps she would have been better off chained to Rumpelstiltskin's bed. It would have been degrading, yes, and certainly unpleasant, but at least she might have been _good_ at it. How much talent does one need to lie still on a mattress?

Surely less talent than one needs to be a caretaker.

For Belle is, to her chagrin, showing a frankly disconcerting ineptitude for her new responsibilities. She had been raised a lady; when the ogres came and her waiting women were sent to the refugee camps in the distant hills, Belle learned to lace her own dresses, wash her own hair, mend her own petticoats - but nothing beyond that. The war was fast and hard and crushing as an avalanche; by the time there were no more servants, it didn't matter that the halls were crusted in mud from soldiers' boots. There was no point.

So she can sweep a broom, and she can wring a mop, but the Dark Castle is in need of far, _far_ more than that. The tiles of the foyer are gray with grime; spiderwebs the size of serving platters hang from corner gargoyles; a waist-high iridescent mushroom grows in the south passageway; strange goo is dripping inside the third dungeon cell. She finds _dozens_ of rooms that clearly haven't been opened in decades, rooms where enough spools of spun gold to feed a mid-sized country lay forgotten in ankle-deep dust. The mildew makes her sneeze for hours.

Possibly more worrisome are the rooms that _are_ clean, at least by comparison. These all feature strange bric-a-brac throwing off the unmistakable ozone of magic: everything from a velvet carton of jeweled eggs, to a three-foot cutlass with engravings that change with every heartbeat, to what appears to be a human thumb floating in a glass jar. They intimidate even Belle's curiosity, and she flatly refuses to touch anything without instruction. Not even with a feather duster. They might not care to be tickled.

She is no better at laundry, or cooking. Every shirt she washes turns pink - no matter the original color! - and her mutton is inevitably burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. She slices her thumb twice chopping vegetables, and she has yet to convince a single loaf of bread dough to rise.

And don't get her _started_ on the mice.

At least her employer isn't present to witness her domestic deficiencies. _Start work on your duties,_ he'd said upon transporting them to the front gates, _don't accept any packages, and stay out of the west wing._

_What's in the west-_

_It's forbidden._ He had then admonished Regina not to get into to any mischief, promised to be back sooner or later - _Do__n't wait up!_ - and vanished into thin air, leaving them to trudge a hundred yards to the castle doors. Through two feet of snow.

That was twelve days ago.

Twelve days in which, in addition to everything else, Belle has utterly failed as a governess.

It certainly hasn't been for lack of effort. The first evening at the Dark Castle, as Belle explored with only a golden candelabra that seemed to twist into new shapes whenever she closed her eyes, she came across a tower library that took her breath away. Her home in Avonlea had not lacked for reading material, precisely, but Belle's appetite for the written word had been voracious since the moment she learned her letters, and she'd consumed every document in her father's study before she'd been out of pigtails. Here the shelves stretched to five times her height, and everyone one of them filled with novels in every language; she was relieved to note that, even though she was to live here for the rest of her life, she would never run short of reading material. There was a happiness - or at least contentment - to be found in that.

But she had reluctantly set aside the first story that caught her eye - a tale of far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise, all of which had her enthralled before the end of the first chapter - and searched instead for practical volumes that could provide foundation for a young girl's schooling. She found books on history, literature, mathematics, and even a very dusty tome that covered royal protocol. She dug paper and quills from a convenient letter desk and spent several hours sketching out plan of study that would cover all the basic topics she herself had learned as a child. Overall, given that she had no experience in teaching anyone anything, Belle had been rather pleased with her accomplishment.

There was just one small problem.

Regina wanted nothing to do with her.

She would knock at the girl's bedroom - for lack of direction, Belle had chosen two chambers for them at random in the best-lit hall - and promise only the best books and most fascinating stories, met each time by terse orders go away. Then Regina would turn up at meals, settle into the only chair at the dining table, take five bites of a dish, say something derogatory about the quality, and vanish back to her room. She ignored all suggestions that they begin the studies with which Belle had been tasked, and referred to Belle only as _maid_.

Belle reminds herself that Regina is surely distressed by her new surroundings. She reminds herself Regina has grown up alone on a farm and probably knows no better. But, more than once, her palms have itched to slap the girl for her insolence.

She doesn't, though. Belle knows her father would have immediately dismissed any governess who attempted to strike her; heaven only knows how the Dark One would react.

These thoughts lead her down many melancholy roads. As she lies in her bed at the end of each day, she tries to think of how her tutors would have persuaded Regina into obedience. She tries to think of how her cooks would have cleaned greasy ashes from the kitchen fireplace. She tries to think of how her father would comfort her.

_Keep your chin up, my girl,_ he would have said. _You are clever, and you are true. The Gods reward those with good hearts._

She cries herself to sleep every night.

* * *

On the thirteenth evening, after a day wherein there is still no sign of Rumpelstiltskin, no success in convincing her charge to even speak to her, and a disaster in the kitchen wherein the baking oven nearly explodes, Belle's tears are interrupted by a series of sharp knocks. She doesn't even have time to rise and pull on a dressing robe before her chamber door opens.

Regina stands with her arms crossed, hair reflecting light from the hall candles that never seem to run down. "Your crying is keeping me awake," she says severely.

There are several retorts Belle would like to make to that; she swallows them back along with her sobs. "I'll try to be quieter," she manages.

"Quieter is good, but you should really just stop." Regina tilts her head to the side, which makes her braid swing over her shoulder. "Why would you cry, anyway?"

She pauses. "Because... well, because I'm homesick," she says after a moment.

Regina narrows her eyes at the admission. "Why?"

"I miss my family." There's no response, and Belle sits up a bit on the cushions of her bed so as to see the girl's expression more clearly, because it surely cannot be as mystified as it appears. "Don't you miss yours?"

"You mean Mr. and Mrs. Berkshire? They're not my family."

"But- but they _raised_ you." Regina nods, and Belle continues: "They fed you, and dressed you, and rocked you to sleep; that's what a family is. They must have loved you."

"No, they didn't. They were scared of me."

Belle blinks at this matter-of-fact statement. "Whatever for?"

"Because they knew I might say something bad about them to Rumpelstiltskin. He made them promise to take good care of me-" she states this proudly, her head held high "-and if they didn't, they would be in _terrible_ trouble."

"Oh." Belle isn't quite sure what to say, but she doesn't fail to note that this is by far the longest conversation the two of them have yet had. She's tired, and her eyes are swollen from tears, but she sits up a little farther and pats the bedclothes at her side. "You can come in you'd like, Regina."

The girl frowns. "You're supposed to call me _Lady_ Regina," she corrects, a child-like imperiousness coloring her words.

"_Lady_ Regina, then." It isn't worth it to disagree - and, after all, she's probably right. "Why don't you sit down?"

The girl - she looks so much younger than she is in bare feet and a white linen nightdress - hesitates, shifting her weight back and forth. But Belle is patient, and after a minute Regina crosses the room with cautious steps to perch gingerly on the very edge of the mattress.

This is a good beginning... but Belle hasn't the slightest idea what she ought to do or say next. Whatever her employer may think about the value of a _feminine touch_, the only experience Belle has had with children came from watching the laundress's three-year-old twins chase each other about the chicken yard. They would come back filthy and giggling, only to be dunked straight into the washing tub by their mother and warned that next time they'd be hung on the line to dry like doublets. They died that winter of typhoid.

This did not teach Belle how to speak to a haughty, lonely girl of ten.

Luckily, it is Regina who chooses to break the silence. "When is Rumpelstiltskin coming back?"

"I'm not certain." Belle has been wondering this herself - has he just left them? Has something happened? How would they know? - but those are not reassuring thoughts to voice to a child. "I can't imagine it will be much longer."

"I'm not worried," she announces hastily, as though Belle had suggested otherwise. "He's very busy."

"I'm sure he is." Belle watches the way Regina's little fingers pick at the golden thread of the quilt, and she can no longer hold back the question that has been burning in her since the moment they met. "How did Rumpelstiltskin find you?"

Regina giggles, oddly enough, and it is a surprisingly warm-hearted sound. "He got me for a sack of radishes."

Belle's mouth drops open. "_Radishes?_"

"That's what he said. I don't think it's true, but he's funny, isn't he?"

"I... I suppose so. I don't know him very well."

"Well, _I_ know him, and he's funny." The girl glances at her sideways. "He's going to teach me magic."

"Yes, he told me."

"I'm really powerful," she adds.

"I'm sure you are. The Dark One wouldn't teach just anybody."

These, at last, are the exact right words to say. Even in the dim light Belle can see Regina beaming. "No," she agrees, "he wouldn't. He's teaching me because I'm special. He always came to see me on my birthday because he wanted to keep an eye on me. He gave me books so I would be ready. I'm going to be the greatest sorceress in the realm."

Belle can only nod, and swallow against the nausea that comes from remembering how Rumpelstiltskin called this girl a _trinket._

"Want to see what I can do?" Regina asks suddenly. Before Belle can respond, the girl points at a pitcher resting on Belle's dresser; she crooks her fingers, and the faintest wisp of smoke swirls along the porcelain, changing it from pale blue to a deep, rich red.

But after a moment the new color starts to fade. Regina scowls. She mutters something under her breath. She twists her wrist with a flourish.

The pitcher shatters.

Belle shouts in surprise and cringes back; the shards haven't even settled on the floor before Regina cries: "I did that on purpose!"

"Regina-"

"That's how the spell's _supposed_ to work!"

"Regina-"

"It is! It was in the book!"

"Regina!"

"_Lady_ Regina!"

"Lady Regina," Belle says, exasperated, "give me your hand."

The little girl blinks, then looks down; a piece of porcelain the side of a thumbnail is embedded in the back of her hand. Large, fat drops of crimson well up around the edges, an almost perfect match for the shade of the failed spell. "I meant to do it," she insists.

"Give me your hand anyway," Belle says, reaching for Regina's arm-

-but Regina pulls back and hops off the bed. Belle winces as she hears the broken pitcher crunch beneath her bare feet. "I meant to do it," she repeats steadily, "and I don't need your help."

Studying Regina's expression, Belle realizes for the first time that the child is an exceptionally talented liar. If she hasn't seen what just happened, she might be inclined to believe her. "I just want to bind up your cut," she says gently. "Doesn't it hurt?"

"No," Regina says. "It doesn't." She plucks the shard from her hand without a flinch, and blood flows between her fingers to drip to the floor. "I'm going back to bed, so don't cry anymore, _maid_. I need my sleep."

In the morning Regina does not come out for breakfast, and Belle picks glass from the carpet until noon.

* * *

Two days later, as Belle is standing in the entryway wondering which staircase to scrub first, the master of the castle returns. Never the most graceful, she nearly falls down the steps when the enormous double doors burst open with a loud bang. "Oh," she says blankly as Rumpelstiltskin stalks into the room, shedding his spiked coat and dropping it to the floor. "You're- you're back."

"Of course I am, dearie; there's no place like home." This, for some reason, makes him titter in that humorless way of his; and from thin air he produces a bright yellow brick, which he drops to the entryway table hard enough to crack the marble. "Errand took a bit longer than expected, but nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"You were looking for that?"

"Indeed I was."

"But it's just a brick."

"Very few things are _just_ anything, dearie. In this world or any other." Rumpelstiltskin brushes his scaled hands free of dust in a few melodramatic swipes and looks about the hall, eyebrows raised in an exaggerated expression of disbelief. "I see you haven't made much progress in my absence."

Belle flushes. She knows perfectly well what he sees: the dustbunnies - more like dust_hares_ - that linger in the corners, the lack of shine on the table, and the tangled fur of the stuffed bear, whose fearsome expression contrasts with a plaque bearing the name of _Baloo_. "It's a big castle," she says, a touch defensively, "and it's only been two weeks."

"Two weeks? Have I really been gone that long? Time _does_ fly when you're on a broomstick." He strips off another layer, removing his cravat from his neck to drop it beside his coat. "I'll be wanting supper in an hour," he tells her, heading up the opposite staircase. "Have the girl present and presentable as well. Oh, and get those mended by morning - monkeys have surprisingly sharp claws."

Belle collects the fallen clothes automatically... and sighs when she sees the holes torn into the edges of fabric not made of dragonhide. At least a needle and thread she _can_ manage.

For once, it takes no effort to convince Regina to come to dinner. Belle only has to say the words "Rumpelstiltskin has returned" and a promise to be down shortly is followed by the unmistakable sound of a closet being frantically rifled through. Then she heads to the kitchen and warms the leftovers of a mutton stew Regina had only picked at three days earlier; it was one of her better efforts, and Belle doubts she'll be able to conjure up anything else in the hour before Rumpelstiltskin expects his meal. Rushing would only lead to more disasters.

Cooking, Belle suspects, must be rather like magic in that regard.

The mantleclock strikes the hour as Belle carries a tray bearing bowls and a soup tureen into the great room; only the Dark One awaits her, lounging in his high-backed chair as a cat on the throne of a king. "Punctual, dearie," he observes, tapping his fingertips together. "I approve of that in a servant."

"Thank you."

"Of course, I'd approve _more_ if you'd managed the other half of your task. Just where is your little charge, anyway?"

Belle bites her lip as she places the tureen in the center of the table; the delicate rosebud pattern seems to dance in the firelight, catching each thorn aflame. "Lady Regina knows she's expected for dinner," she says, going for diplomacy. "I'm sure she'll be along soon."

"She'd best be." He peers at the bowl of stew Belle has set before him with an expression half-intrigued, half-revolted. "If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all."

"Well, I hope it doesn't upset you that she's been eating for this last fortnight," Belle retorts. "I didn't know we were meant to starve during your absence."

More bitterness than Belle had anticipated or intended bleeds out of her words, and Rumpelstiltskin looks up at her, loose waves of hair swinging into his eyes. "Oh, what's this, then?" he trills. "Angry that the monster didn't wait to see you in properly?"

She is, actually; she's very angry, and the depth of it didn't strike her until this moment. But she bites it back and merely replies: "It would have been nice to know where the linen closet was, that's all."

Rumpelstiltskin cocks his head to the side; she turns away, busying herself with setting out the silverware, but she can feel his gaze boring into the side of her face. It makes her cheek prickle. "I've a ball of string about here somewhere," he says after a moment. "Not using it at the moment. The previous owner told me her lover thought it handy for finding his way around." He snickers. "Though she seemed to rather, ah, _regret_ having gifted it to him in the first place."

And he waits.

Belle's never been good at stifling her curiosity, and though she knows perfectly well the Dark One is baiting her, she allows herself to be hooked anyway. "Why did she regret it?" she asks him. "What happened?"

"The usual. She gave the string to the hero to save his life. It worked, of course. Then he sailed off to become king and abandoned her on an island without so much as a thank you."

"That's- that's awful!" Belle only just stops herself in time from overflowing the goblet and spilling wine across the table - which she would have to clean up - and turns to Rumpelstiltskin in shock. "After she saved his life? Why would he do something like that?"

"Because he'd gotten what he wanted, dearie, and he had no further use for her. Simple as that."

"No. There must have been some explanation-"

"There wasn't." He's watching her, a bitter smile at odds with the vaguely speculative look in his eyes. "Don't pity the girl too much; presented with the opportunity, she undoubtably would have done the same. Anyone would."

"I don't believe that." Belle straightens her back, wishing fruitlessly that there were a second goblet from which she might drink. Bravery follows brave deeds, but wine would smooth the way. "Maybe her lover was... was selfish, and terrible, but you can't assume _everyone_ will act that way just because _he_ did. You can't tell what's in a person's heart until you truly know them."

This coaxes another laugh out of him, and it's not kind. "You're wrong, dearie. All hearts are alike - I've carved enough chests to prove _that_."

Belle is spared from responding to this cold statement - and thankfully so, because she cannot imagine how _to_ respond - by the sound of hesitant steps coming in from the hall. Regina enters, wearing an expression of very determined calm, her dark hair is brushed loose to her waist; again, through the softness her jawline and roundness of her cheeks, Belle sees the beginning of a true beauty, if a somewhat severe one.

If Rumpelstiltskin notices this, he offers nothing; rather, his eyes narrow at the girl's dress. It's the same simple cut Belle has seen Regina in thus far, but she recognizes the deep shade of red as the one from the shattered basin; pretty, but much too dramatic for such a young girl - and, judging by the disapproval in the Dark One's strange face, he feels the same way.

But "You're late," is all he says.

Regina quails slightly under the harsh tone. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be."

"Intent is meaningless. Don't be late for my summons again." Rumpelstiltskin's tone is sharp and pitched as ever, but it lacks the barbed playfulness Belle has come to associate with him. He snaps his fingers, and a plush chair appears at the opposite end of the table. "Please, sit."

She does. Belle moves quickly to set a place for the girl - with juice instead of wine - and she notices the stitching along the back of her dress is still a mottled buttery yellow.

Rumpelstiltskin takes a bite of his stew. Regina lifts her spoon, but holds it away from the bowl, waiting for his reaction; he chews once, twice, then swallows, disgust wrinkling his nose. He says to Belle: "Not much of a chef, are you?"

Regina puts her spoon down.

Belle flushes. "Maybe your magic string can lead me to some cookbooks," she counters without thinking.

There's a long pause; Belle can nearly see the evaluation spin through Rumpelstiltskin's head. She shifts her weight but keeps her chin up, and prays she is not found wanting - well, any more so than she already is.

But at last, his face splits into a mossy grin. "I don't have any of those in my collection," he informs her, "which I can see now is an appalling oversight. I'll see about trading for a stack of recipes before you poison us all."

And he eats the rest of his stew without complaint. Regina immediately follows suit.

For all that Rumpelstiltskin commanded the presence of his - ward? Apprentice? What _does_ he consider Regina exactly, aside from a trinket? - at the dinner table, he seems decidedly disinclined to speak to her. Belle catches Regina sneaking glances at him multiple times, but she apparently lacks the bravery to begin a conversation. Belle, for her part, is grateful that their master's presence has convinced the girl to eat a proper meal for once, less-than-savory though it may be.

Belle is clearing the dishes when Rumpelstiltskin demands: "What happened to your hand?"

Both Regina and Belle glance down at Regina's left palm, which is wrapped with what looks to be a piece of torn bedsheet. "I hurt it," she says.

"Yes, yes, dearie, I can _see_ that. I was hoping for a bit more _detail_."

Regina swallows. "I cast a spell. Just a little one. And when I did, it- and..."

Her words die at the look on the Dark One's face. "You thought you'd practice all on your own, did you? I can see how well it went."

A muscle in Regina's jaw tightens. "It went perfectly," she lies, without a visible hint of shame. "I did it right."

"Oh, indeed," he says sarcastically. "And I suppose you couldn't _possibly_ have injured yourself on a foolhardy, arrogant, overreaching backfire."

"No. I didn't. The spell worked."

"Then how did you hurt your hand?"

"It was my fault," says Belle. Rumpelstiltskin and Regina turn to look at her, the former with surprise, the latter with alarm. "Lady Regina was changing the color of her curtains, and it surprised me. I dropped a pitcher. It broke. She hurt herself while helping me clean up."

Belle is surprised to hear the story trip so easily from her tongue; she only wishes her cheeks weren't burning like hot coals. She never could lie. She doesn't even know why she's doing it. But it's not right for a grown man - or whatever he is - to bully a little girl who thinks the world of him.

The silence stretches; Regina stares at her plate, Rumpelstiltskin stares at Belle. Her face grows warmer, but she does not flinch.

"I could heal that," he says to Regina after some moments, eyes still on Belle, "but I won't. Not until tomorrow. Consider this your first lesson, dearie: all magic comes with a price. _Never_ cast a spell until you know _exactly_ what that price is."

"Yes, sir," she whispers.

"Good. You're dismissed. And be awake bright and early; you and I have a lot of work to do."

Rumpelstiltskin sits silent after Regina has slunk from the room, immobile except for the way the tips of his fingers tap restlessly against one another; the rest of him can be still as any reptile lurking in the grass, but his hands never stop moving. Belle chooses to ignore his scrutiny, and has stacked the empty dishes on the tray and wiped off the table before he says in an indifferent lilt: "If I remember correctly, the very first task you were given was to look after the girl. You _were_ listening, weren't you?"

Belle's stomach sinks. "I was."

"Good. I'd hate to think my instructions were going unheeded - because I certainly can't imagine what _else_ would have caused this."

She swallows, and wonders if, when he carves her chest open, her heart will look the same as everyone else's. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful in the future."

"Oh, yes, dearie, I think you will. But let's add a little extra _motivation_, shall we?" He flicks his wrist.

A cold, prickling sensation rushes across Belle's skin, like falling through thin ice on a frozen pond. It's gone in a flash, but is quickly replaced by a sharp pain piercing her left hand; she watches in horror as a cut appears from nowhere, neatly running parallel to the slender bones separating her fingers.

"I don't want a single scratch on that girl," Rumpelstiltskin murmurs. Even when his tone is low it carries over the crackle of the fire. "Any damage she suffers, you'll suffer as well. Do you understand the rules?"

It takes a moment, but Belle manages a "Yes, sir."

"Good."

She so wants to be stoic, and face this new leash with courage - _do the brave thing, and bravery will follow_ - but it _hurts_, and silent tears fall to the table to mingle with the drops dripping from her hand. With her uninjured hand she swipes a rag through the mess, trying to clean before it dries. The ogre wars taught her long ago how blood stains never entirely go away.

She hiccups.

Then, as quickly as it came, the cut is gone. "That- that one was a warning," says Rumpelstiltskin; he's leapt from his chair and settled at his spinning wheel before Belle can even blink the tears from her eyes. "I trust you'll know better in the future, dearie. You're dismissed."

Ten feet of gold thread have fallen into the basket before Belle collects herself enough to depart. But before she closes the door, he calls: "And get rid of any other red dresses she has."

She blinks. "Why? I- I mean, they're not practical, but the color _does_ suit her-"

"Yes. I know. Burn them."

By the time Belle has finished washing up from dinner - kitchen cleaning is less difficult than other sorts, perhaps, but still time-consuming, and she has yet to learn any tricks or shortcuts that might speed it along - the sun is long set, and she can think of nothing but her pillow. She makes her way back to her chambers - and as she passes Regina's room she hears a thud, followed by a string of profanities no child should know.

Belle opens the door to find Regina on her enormous four-poster bed, surrounded by a half-dozen open books, glaring at them so fiercely Belle is surprised the paper don't burst into flame. Strewn across the floor are the shredded remains of at least six dresses in various stages of red - debris of the same failed spell that shattered Belle's pitcher.

The girl ignores her completely, and Belle observes out of the corner of her eye as she silently gathers up the fallen scraps. Regina keeps turning back to the same pages, their edges worn down and yellowed with use; Belle knows all the signed of a well-loved tome. As she comes to the other side of the bed - after throwing the dresses into the hearth - she uses the pretense of smoothing down the quilts to peer over Regina's shoulder.

The page Regina is focused on bears the title _Imbuement_. Beneath a few paragraphs of instructions, a series of wood-cut figures depict the appropriate movements of casting; Belle watches as Regina repeats miniature versions of these gestures over and over, glowering at the illustration as though it is at fault for everything wrong in the world.

Belle glances around.

_All_ the books are open to illustrations.

The pieces click into place. "Regina?" Belle asks gently. "Regina, can you read?"

"Yes." The answer is too flat, too fast, and too automatic. "And it's _Lady_ Regina."

She hesitates for a moment, but then Belle moves aside a few of the volumes and sits on the edge of the mattress. She picks one up and flips through one with a great deal of cautiousness, but the pages don't bite, and a moment of examination makes it clear that these are hardly spell books at all, mostly just histories and the barest of descriptions. Of course Rumpelstiltskin would only give her something novice-safe. "No one's _born_ reading," she offers. "Everyone is taught."

Regina's face is as red as the coloring spell she keeps trying to cast. "I can read," she lies. "All sorceresses can. Leave me alone."

"All right." Belle pauses, then slides the book in her hands back across the bedclothes. "But I was just thinking... oh, never mind." She stands. "Good night, Lady Regina."

Belle's hand is on the doorknob before Regina says reluctantly: "What were you thinking?"

"Nothing of consequence. Only that... perhaps you and I could make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

Belle turns back with a great show of reluctance. "Well, I could help-"

Regina bristles.

"-I could _assist_ you with your spellbooks," Belle amends, "and we could talk about them, think them over, so that you'll be prepared when you go to your magic lessons... _if_ you'll also let me talk with you about a few other subjects as well." Regina looks skeptical, and Belle adds: "Rumpelstiltskin is the one who asked me to teach you, you know."

It's this last sentence that wins Regina over, as Belle knew it would, but the little girl saves her dignity by dismissing Belle with a flutter of her hand decidedly reminiscent of their master. "I'll think about it," she says airily. "Good night, maid."

"Sleep well, Lady Regina."

* * *

In the morning there is a spool of shining string dangling from Belle's door handle. It steers her instantly to the linen closet.

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein Belle and Rumpelstiltskin disagree over Regina's education._


	4. Chapter Three (A)

The days at the Dark Castle settle into a routine that would be monotonous if not for the inimitable comfort of certainty, especially in such a strange place.

Each morning Regina and Rumpelstiltskin rise early, take their breakfast from Belle - who rises even before them, and discovers to her relief that porridge is both accepted and not beyond her capabilities - and then disappear into the laboratory tower until lunchtime. These hours often feature ear-splitting blasts which confirm to Belle the estate's magical properties, because otherwise the stones would have shaken apart by now. Occasionally there are bad smells, and on a memorable day smoke seeps from under the door and leaves an orange muck in its wake that takes Belle three days to scrub from the staircase. For the first few days she had waited anxiously for burns or bruises to appear on her body, but apparently Rumpelstiltskin was keeping Regina was safe from whatever explosions they were causing, and after a week Belle relaxed and continued to go about her work.

And there is so _much_ work. No matter how many rooms she dusts, sweeps, mops, and polishes, there is always one more door that she has somehow failed to notice, and it is always full of every bit as much clutter as those she has just completed. As she washes, she bitterly reflects that there is no way in the world _this_ piccolo or _that_ windmill could matter to _anyone_, especially given that they are caked in a hundred years of filth.

No. Her employer is a packrat. A slovenly, inconsiderate packrat, and that is all there is to it.

After one particularly trying morning in which Belle had dedicated herself to a spacious ballroom and managed to scour only a mere ten square feet of tile, she delivered a tray of sandwiches to the tower and asked Rumpelstiltskin irritably: "Can't you just _magic_ this place clean?"

He'd set aside a foul-smelling potion with a titter. "Grown weary of your deal, little maid?"

"No. It just seems... _inefficient_ to do it all by hand, that's all."

Rumpelstiltskin considered her for a moment, then glanced at Regina, who had been perched on a stool and grinding something to dust with a granite pestle bigger than her forearm. "Answer her, dearie. Why don't I _poof _all the dust and dirt away?"

"Because there's too much magic in the castle," Regina recited at once, not even looking up from the mortar. "If big spells are cast on top of little spells, there may be unexpected results."

"Example."

This made Regina pause. She'd started tying her hair atop her head to keep it out of the potions, but refused all of Belle's offers to help with ribbons or scarves; as a result, strands were forever coming loose. She had pushed back the fallen locks as she answered: "A cleaning spell might... might polish some of the things that ought not be touched. _Belle_ knows not to handle the golden lamp, but a spell wouldn't, and it could release the genie, and it's difficult to get genies to go back into their lamps without using wishes, and besides the genie might think the _spell_ was his master, since technically it would be what had rubbed the lamp, and... uh, I don't know what would happen then, since spells aren't alive, but probably nothing good."

A smile had twitched at Rumpelstiltskin's lips - Belle saw it, she knew she had - before he caught himself and told Regina severely: "Don't ramble. The more words you uses, the more opportunities there are to make mistakes. Always be concise."

Regina's shoulders slumped. "_You're_ not," she'd muttered.

"Yes, well, I'm a great deal better at this than you." He turned back to Belle. "Mind you, _loquacious_ though that answer was, she's not wrong. The more spells one layers, the more unpredictable the magic becomes." Then he waved his hand dismissively and returned to his potions. "So less complaining and more scrubbing, if you please!"

Belle hadn't stomped from the tower, exactly, but she may have closed the door with more force than strictly necessary.

The afternoons belong to Belle and Regina. Depending on how her morning with Rumpelstiltskin has gone, Regina can be difficult, but she at least pays attention as Belle attempts to teach her what she knows. It is more demanding than she expected - Belle has never been _trained_ as a governess, and with every passing day she develops more respect for those who were - but once she discovers the best way to tempt Regina into learning is to be circumspect and wait for her to ask questions, progress is slowly made. Regina still refuses to admit her illiteracy, but Belle finds that reading aloud while subtly drawing her finger across the lines seems to be making a difference; certainly more pages in Regina's books are showing signs of wear, even ones without illustrations. The girl has only a passing interest in history, and cares nothing for literature, but mathematics she takes to like a duck to water. Belle suspects this is because numbers are easier to memorize than words, but it is clear there is also an inherent talent, and Belle has to brush up on her own studies before her pupil outstrips her entirely.

By the end of their lessons each day Regina is often so tired she falls asleep at her letter desk, making Belle wonder if Rumpelstiltskin hadn't been entirely joking about the potential of the girl's brains leaking out her ears. Belle prepares the evening meal, returns to wake Regina a half hour before supper, then serves she and Rumpelstiltskin in the great room, the latter of whom never fails to make some sarcastic comment about her cooking. Belle learns not to be offended by his quips, which are clearly said with no greater purpose than to get a rise out of her. Some of them are even rather funny - though she makes a point never to smile, let alone laugh. For if there is one thing Belle has learned, it is that the Dark One does _not_ need encouraging. In anything.

After dinner Belle gathers the dishes, Rumpelstiltskin spins at his wheel, and Regina settles in front of the fire to watch the flames and think whatever it is that ten-year-old sorceresses-in-training thought.

The only differences are the days that Rumpelstiltskin travels, for which he gives no explanation and sometimes vanishes during the night without even a note. Regina is beyond impossible at those times and Belle simply leaves her to her own devices. But thankfully, unlike before, their master is never gone for more than two days at a stretch; he comes back, Regina recovers from her sulk, and the cycle continues as before.

When Belle crawls into bed at night she occasionally reflects that, all things considered, there are worse lives to live. But that is only when she has energy to reflect at all.

* * *

It all begins to change the night Belle catches the thief.

She has stayed up late, burnishing the mirrors in the second floor hallway with all the grim determination of a death march. She has been at them with vinegar and polish for the better part of a week; now she is down to the very last spotty looking glass, and she _will_ finish it, even if she has to stay up all night, because by all the Gods she is not spending one more day on the horrid things.

Regina is long in bed; Rumpelstiltskin is off doing heaven-knows-what - Belle has yet to see any sign that he sleeps, for she has gathered discarded shirts in his chambers yet never has to straighten the bedclothes; therefore Belle is the first to hear the unexpected sound of breaking glass.

"Regina?" she calls. "Regina, is that you?"

But, no; the girl's bedroom opens a moment later, far down the hall. Her tousled head pokes out from around the door. "What was that?" she asks fretfully.

Belle is about to reassure her that it's likely Rumpelstiltskin up to something strange - again - when another sound of shattering stops her. It is clearly echoing up the stairway.

"Stay here," Belle orders, tossing her rag into the bucket of vinegar water and rushing down the stairs as best she can in her kitten heels. If it is Rumpelstiltskin making the racket, well, she'd best make sure he's all right; if it's something else... as the caretaker, it's probably her job to greet it.

It's something else.

The first thing Belle sees in the smashed-in windowpane in the foyer; the second thing she sees is the doors to the great room thrown open; the third thing she sees is a tall man on the other side of the fireplace, his hand clasped about a bow, his face hidden by a hooded cloak. He is lifting Rumpelstiltskin's fairy wand from its display.

She is struck by a sudden flash of anger. "Excuse me!" she says indignantly, storming into the great room without a thought. "Who are you, and _what_ are you doing here?"

The stranger turns towards her; she can't see his face in the shadows, but his head bobs up and down as he takes her in. It occurs to her that she ought to be frightened, but she isn't. This is an intruder sneaking about her home, touching items that she has dusted - furthermore, _she_ is the one who will have to sweep up all that glass in the entryway.

"Hello," replies the stranger calmly, not a hint of chagrin in his tone at being caught breaking and entering. "Let me guess: a maiden in need of rescue."

"I- wait, what?"

"My apologies, but I don't have the time to help you tonight. But if you can hold on for a few days, I've a whole passel of merry men who'd take great pleasure in coming to your assistance-"

"I'd stop talking now, dearie." As he tends to do, Rumpelstiltskin appears in the room soundlessly, as though he's been standing next to the hearth the entire time and no one has cared to look. His smile is wide in a way that bodes ill for them all. "You've _already_ been caught taking something that doesn't belong to you; do you really want to make it worse by stealing something _else_ of mine?"

"Hardly stealing to save a woman held captive by a monster," the stranger retorts. He pushes back his hood, and Belle blinks; even in the shadows he's impressively handsome, in a rakish sort of way. If one likes that sort of thing. "And as for _this_-" he holds up the wand "-from what I hear, it wasn't yours to begin with, Dark One."

"Is that so? I can't _imagine_ who could have told you that." Rumpelstiltskin giggles. "A piece of advice, dearie: take fairy tales with a grain of salt. When they spin their stories the truth can get a little, ah, _tangled_."

"I'll take my chances," says the stranger, tucking the wand into his quiver.

"Oh, no, I wasn't talking to _you_. _Your_ edification I could care less about." Without looking away from the stranger, Rumpelstiltskin crooks a finger in Belle's direction - or rather, she realizes quickly, in the direction of the entryway. "Come on out, now."

Belle has to stifle a groan as Regina slinks around the doorframe sheepishly. "I told you to stay in your room," she hisses.

Regina shrinks at Belle's tone, but Rumpelstiltskin just gestures her forward. "No, no, it's quite all right," he says, his sing-song words honed to their sharpest. "We'll use this opportunity for a practical learning experience."

The stranger's bow is strung from the moment Regina steps into the room. "Holding maidens _and_ children," he says bitingly, arrow pointed at Rumpelstiltskin's chest. "You _are_ everything the whispers say."

"And more, I should think. Stop there." The last is said to Regina, who freezes in place ten paces away, well out of the line of fire. "Tell me: what is our guest doing?"

"He's stealing," Regina says.

"More specific."

"He's stealing magic."

"Still more specific."

"He's..." She frowns for a moment - then her expression clears and she adds triumphantly: "He's stealing magic from _you!_"

"You are correct!" Rumpelstiltskin claps his hands with delight. "And what does _that_ mean, dearie?"

"Um... that he's really stupid?"

Belle, who has been creeping closer to Regina, has to work hard not to roll her eyes in exasperation; Rumpelstiltskin just snickers and looks at the girl with what could almost be considered pride. "Not _quite_ the answer I was looking for, but, as it's true-"

"Enough of this," says the thief. He pulls the bow taunt. Belle is no sorceress, but she's been caretaker here for almost three months now; she knows an enchanted object when she sees it, and this weapon positively reeks of magic. "A grown woman could manage for a few days while I summon a rescue party, but I will not leave this castle while you have a child in your clutches."

"Well, you're right about one thing, dearie: you won't leave this castle." Rumpelstiltskin vanishes, and Belle has a moment of utterly irrational fear that he's abandoned them before he reappears a heartbeat later on the opposite side of the room. "And if you want to hit me, you'll have to be an _exceptional_ shot."

The thief just readjusts his aim. "Clever trick, Dark One," he says, "but it won't work. An arrow fired from this bow _always_ finds its target."

Rumpelstiltskin smirks. "Shall we test that?"

The thief looses the arrow, and Rumpelstiltskin vanishes again. But rather than imbed itself in the wall, the arrow arcs through the air, confused, searching for its lost quarry-

-and Regina stands right in the way of its path.

Belle acts without thinking, tackling the girl to the stone floor before the hearth, coals nearly singing the edge of her skirts. Regina yelps with pain, and an instant later Belle feels the matching hurt of a bruise forming on her right knee. The arrow, oblivious as any inanimate object, circles once more through the room... and buries itself in Rumpelstiltskin's heart as he materializes at the thief's side.

Belle gasps. She tries to shield Regina's eyes, but too late; the girl sees the arrow sticking from her master's chest and cries out a second time, scrabbling under Belle's weight. _"Let me go! Let me..."_

Her shrieks trail off at the familiar, utterly unchanged sound of Rumpelstiltskin's eerie laugh; Belle's heart restarts as he pulls the arrow from his. There's not a drop of blood on it. "Looks like you didn't do your research, dearie," he trills to the thief, whose eyes are wide with shock and a sudden dash of fear. "Or did you really think your little toy was powerful enough to kill me?"

His eyes flick from the thief to Belle, then to Regina as they climb off the floor, both wincing; though his voice is as careless as ever, there's not the slightest amusement in it as he says to Regina: "Just one more question, dearie, and then it's back to bed. What was the first lesson that I taught you?"

Regina is still trembling, but she gulps down a breath and answers: "All- all m-magic comes a price."

"_Exactly_." He turns back to the thief. "And in _your_ case-" he bares his teeth in a malevolent smile "-that's _me_."

* * *

For the next two days Belle tells Regina that they will take their meals as well as their lessons in the library, ostensibly to spend more time working on the language studies the girl has been intent upon skirting. Regina gripes to no end, but at least it keeps her out of earshot of the dungeon.

Belle has no such luxury. The washroom is very near the cells, and screams carry easily in stone halls.

The third evening, after Belle allows Regina to go conjugate her verbs on the front grounds - knowing full well the girl will ignore her and play in the apple orchard instead - she returns to the great room to sweep, something she's been avoiding. She discovered while cleaning up the morning after the break-in that the dungeons can be heard from _this_ part of the castle as well.

Belle is no stranger to the sounds of men in pain. She has heard the cries of the soldiers cut and crushed in the ogre war. The instruments of torture Rumpelstiltskin has carelessly left on the table are much like the tools used by surgeons to slice free the decaying limbs of those lucky enough to return from the battlefront. So the screams do not frighten her. She knows them.

But that was war. This is... something else.

"I'm going to need another apron," says Rumpelstiltskin, entering the room without so much as a 'hello'. Belle winces as he throws the offending leather to the table with a slap; bits of _something_ fly free.

"They're on the line, drying." She swallows back against the sudden nausea. "It'll be some time."

"Fine, fine; get to cleaning this one as well." His voice is nearly human and absolutely humorless; he's been in a black mood since this began. Belle wonders whether what he's doing bothers him more than he lets on; she also wonders whether there's room for this new apron on the smaller line outside the kitchen, which is where she's been hiding the aprons from Regina.

Blood oozes across the table; Belle catches it with a rag before it drips off the edge and onto the fine carpet. She thinks she sees the faintest hint of uneasiness in Rumpelstiltskin, but it's gone before she can be sure; maybe it's just wishful thinking. "I'll be back later," he announces tersely, striding for the entryway.

Belle bites her lip, hesitates, and asks: "Can you take the side door?" When he turns to face her in confusion, she explains, "It's- it's just... Regina's out front."

Rumpelstiltskin blinks, then glances down at himself; there are crimson streaks across his shins. "Ah," he says, and this time Belle is very certain she's not misreading the discomfort in his expression, slight though it is.

Her heart lifts. She was right. He _knows_ this is wrong.

She shouldn't say anything - she knows she shouldn't, and that no good is likely to come of it - but she can't hold herself back any longer. "All this," she says, "because he tried to steal a magic wand?"

"No, because he tried to steal from _me_ - the Dark One." Oh, yes, she'd been wrong to press the point; any sign of remorse has vanished under a wave of his determined theatrics. "Which, as I've been reliably informed, makes him _really_ stupid. Not to mention, dearie, that he seemed to think he could help himself to my maid and my apprentice as well." Something shadowed crosses his face, and he croons: "_So_ sorry to _interrupt_ before you and the handsome hero could work out the details."

"Wh- what? What are you _talking_ about?"

"What is who talking about?"

Belle and Rumpelstiltskin both freeze as Regina comes into the room, apple blossoms stuck to her hair. "I've decided to write a spell that translates all languages," she declares, "and therefore I will _not_ be conjugating verbs from now on." Then she frowns, and matter-of-factly informs Rumpelstiltskin: "There are stains on your boots."

Rumpelstiltskin's green-gold skin pales to a sickly gray; he doesn't answer.

Regina reaches for the tools on the table. "What's that?"

"Don't touch those!" Belle cries - and looks up in shock to realize Rumpelstiltskin has said the same, with nearly the same level of urgency.

Regina drops her hand at once, but still leans in closer, nose nearly touching the sticky hacksaw. "Mr. Berkshire used this stuff for slaughtering cows," she observes. "Are we having steak for dinner?"

Belle might be sick on the floor. "Yes," she says, dropping the broom to pull Regina away. "Yes, we are. Now run back outside and-"

Another moan echoes through the halls. Belle shudders; Regina perks up; and Rumpelstiltskin, if anything, looks paler.

"That's... that's the thief." Regina glances from Belle, to the tools, to Rumpelstiltskin. Her eyes widen. "We're not having _him_ for dinner, are we?"

"Of course not." Belle is more than a little unnerved by the blunt manner of Regina's speaking.

"We don't eat thieves," adds Rumpelstiltskin. "They're gamey."

Belle glares at him.

"That's good." A loose apple blossoms falls from Regina's hair onto the carving knife. "So- so you're torturing him?" She peeks up at Rumpelstiltskin, then straightens. "I knew that," she lies at once. "I knew that, and it's a good idea. He _deserves_ it. All magic comes with a price."

For a long moment, Rumpelstiltskin stares at the girl, so still that Belle begins to worry that something has happened to him. But then, very, very slowly, a fearsome smile starts to spread across his face. "You're right, dearie," he says lightly. "You _are_ right. All magic comes with a price." He steps forward. "Would you like to learn more about _his?_"

"No!" exclaims Belle, at the same moment Regina says "Yes."

"Good! I think you're ready for it. I have a few little _things_ to do tonight... but tomorrow, we'll get started on the next step in your training." He turns his smirk on Belle, who shudders. "It seems our thief may prove useful after all."

When Rumpelstiltskin is gone, Belle turns to Regina - who is beaming with pride - and says, "You'll have supper in your room tonight. Go." She's surprised by the calm, even tone of her words; everything inside her is trembling.

"You can't tell me-"

"Go. _Now._"

Visibly pouting, the girl obeys, adding a few stomps up the stairs for emphasis. Belle holds herself still for several minutes after she hears the door slam; she uses the time to take deep breaths, trying to cleanse the horror from her body. She tastes the salty tang of blood in the air with each inhale.

She made a promise to look after Regina, and she will. Whether Rumpelstiltskin likes it or not.

_Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow._

* * *

Belle waits an hour, even though Regina is safely in her room and there's no one to hear her but those thrice-damned mice, which have spawned many hundreds of generations in the Dark Castle and clearly have no intention of vacating, in spite of Belle's best efforts.

She creeps down to the dungeons. She follows the trail of blood splatters like breadcrumbs to the correct cell. She swings the splintered door wide. She stares at the prisoner who hangs like a piece of meat in a butcher's shop.

Bizarrely, Belle's first reaction is relief. He's not nearly as bad off as she had feared, given the tools she's had to polish and aprons she's had to clean. There is a scalp wound - those always bleed terribly - as well as a number of bruises; he's strung up by his arms but appears to still have his fingers and toes, as well as all of his hide, in spite of Rumpelstiltskin's repeated threats to skin the man alive. Perhaps even the Dark One cannot stomach flaying. She herself can't imagine a worse fate.

As she lingers in the doorway, the thief's eyes open - well, one eye, at least. The other is swollen shut. "Hello again," he rasps, a sardonic smile on his cracked lips. "Has he sent you to finish the job?"

Belle shakes herself. "No, no. Of course not. I'm here to help." The iron chains about his wrists are attached to a rope, which is fastened to the far wall; his weight makes it difficult to untie, but after a moment of struggle, she manages to loosen the knots enough to lower him to the ground with a thud. "I couldn't let this continue," she tells him as he groans and rubs his legs. "No one deserves to be tortured."

"I couldn't agree more," the thief says as Belle helps him free of the manacles. "But _he_ may beg to differ."

"I don't care; he doesn't frighten me. And even if he did, some things are more important." Such as not allowing a child to witness a scene such as this. "Hurry up, now; he'll be back soon. Take the south passageway, past the giant mushroom, through the larder; there's a gate-"

"-beyond the orchard, yes." The thief grins, then winces and spits out a cracked tooth. "That's how I got in the first time."

This makes Belle frown, in spite of her compassion. Just because this man shouldn't be tortured doesn't mean she's not still a bit angry at his invasion. This is her home now. "You shouldn't have tried to get in at all," she tells him. "Stealing from the Dark One is-"

"-really stupid. I heard. But, as you said, some things are more important." Leaning heavily on the door frame, the thief glances up and down the hallway before turning back to Belle, a speculative gleam in his eye. "He will kill you for this," he says, "unless you run away with me. I said I have friends who would be able to help you. I meant it."

Belle allows herself one brief, sparkling moment of fantasy wherein she returns to her village and her father's arms... until she recalls that the moment that happened, the ogres would turn the village to ash. And, unlike before, she would have no one to blame but herself. "I can't," she says. "I made a deal to serve him. I gave my word. I won't break it."

"But he'll-"

"He won't kill me. He wouldn't- it's- that's not the way he does things." She hopes.

"The girl, then," the thief presses. "Please. She must have family searching for her. Her parents?"

Parents who would surely not consider exposing their daughter to what happens in dungeons such as these. For a moment Belle considers saying yes, just bundling Regina up and sending her away from all this, but... "It wouldn't work," she says regretfully. "She'll call for Rumpelstiltskin the moment you try to pull her from the castle. She _wants_ to be here." The thief frowns, and Belle assures him, "I won't let any harm come to her. I promise. Now go, quickly, or you'll never get away before he returns."

Later that night, Belle tries to figure out why doing the right thing can leave a sick feeling in one's stomach. She gets nowhere.

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin, unsurprisingly, doesn't take the news well. "Where is he?" he demands, storming into the great room after breakfast, carving knife in hand, a pale Regina hard on his heels.

"Gone." Belle sets aside her book on the divan and works to keep her voice level. "I let him go."

"_What?_ He was a thief!"

Behind Rumpelstiltskin, Regina shakes her head at Belle and mouths _Shouldn't have done that,_ twisting her fingers together nervously.

But this only reminds Belle why she did what she did, and why she would do it again if she had to. "That doesn't give you the right to kill him." She looks directly at Regina. "Not even if he was a thief. No matter what. It doesn't give _anyone_ the right."

"It gives me _every_ right! It-" Rumpelstiltskin breaks off, glancing between Belle and Regina. Then his expression darkens, and his lips curl into a sneer as he turns back to Belle. "Oh, _I_ see. Squeamish over the way I'm educating my apprentice, are you?"

"Yes," Belle answers simply. To Regina, she says: "I saw good in him. That man only wanted to escape with his life."

"Oh, is _that_ what you thought?" Rumpelstiltskin's words are filled with such disdain that Belle can nearly feel herself shrinking. Hopefully it's only in her head and not the beginnings of a curse. "Tell me, Regina: what's missing from this room?"

Regina narrows her eyes in concentration and spins in a slow circle. She stops facing the cabinet. "Uh-oh."

"_Uh-oh_ is right." Rumpelstiltskin waves at one of the pedestals. A pedestal that sits disturbingly empty.

The fairy wand is gone.

"You were tricked," snarls Rumpelstiltskin to Belle, and Regina steps back quickly, "you foolish, _gullible_ girl!"

While she does not condone flaying or mutilation, at this exact moment Belle would not mind at all to discover that the thief has been kicked by a horse in his personal regions. But she remembers how he agreed that _some things are more important_, and though her cheeks begin to burn with humiliation, she forces herself to stand nonetheless. She will not cower like a child before the Dark One's rage. "I'm sure there is an explanation," she offers as earnestly as she can. "We- we don't know _why_ he needed that wand."

"He took the wand because he wanted _magic!_" Both Belle and Regina jump back; Belle is still fairly certain Rumpelstiltskin won't kill her, at least not on purpose, but he's wielding the carving knife with a little too much enthusiasm. Dead is dead whether by design or mishap. "People who steal magic _never_ have good intentions!" Regina recoils as he points the knife at her for emphasis.

"You can't- but you can't know for certain," Belle insists. "And will you _please_ stop waving that thing around before you hurt someone?"

Rumpelstiltskin glances down, looking vaguely puzzled, as though he's forgotten the blade in his hand. He shakes his head, mutters something unintelligible and probably obscene, and tosses the knife into the table.

Regina is gnawing on her lower lip, shifting her weight as she looks from her maid and her master. "I... I thought intent was meaningless?" Rumpelstiltskin glowers at her, and she shrinks back. "I mean, that _is_ what you said. Isn't it?"

Regina's right, but Belle isn't sure whose argument is better helped by this, so she doesn't respond. Neither does Rumpelstiltskin - possibly for the same reason.

Frankly, it's beside the point. "I wasn't going to stand by and watch you teach a child how to torture," she says quietly, praying Regina can't see how she's trembling. "It isn't right."

"Oh, it isn't, is it? Well, since you're so _very_ concerned about how the lessons are going, perhaps you'd like to attend one." Rumpelstiltskin waves through the air, and when the cloud of purple smoke clears, the thief's bow is in his hand. Another gesture, and the bow shrinks down to the size of a child's weapon. "A field trip, perhaps." He hands the bow to Regina, who takes it gingerly.

"No," Belle gasps. "No, you can't-"

"_Actually_, dearie, I _can_. And because this is your fault, _you're_ coming too." He spins on his heel, and with a clap of his hands, the great room and castle doors swing open. Bright morning sunlight streams in, making Belle cringe.

"Grab your cloaks," Rumpelstiltskin tells them both. "We're going hunting."

* * *

** _Next_** _: Wherein Regina receives an archery lesson._


	5. Chapter Three (B)

If Belle were inclined to think anything positive of Rumpelstiltskin at the moment, she would have to admit that his enchanted, driver-less carriage is very impressive. It barely jostles as they travel over muddy and rutted roads, and, in spite of the open sides, they are never touched by the frequent bouts of dreary spring showers. Even after four hours, she has not yet grown sore the way she would when traveling to distant kingdoms with her father; and Regina is so comfortable that she has long since fallen asleep, curled on the red velvet bench seat, her head in Belle's lap.

But she is _not_ inclined to think anything positive, and so maintains a silence colder than the rain. Luckily the Dark One seems in just as foul a temper, and thus has also been uncharacteristically taciturn.

Foul temper or not, though, he _is_ Rumpelstiltskin, and eventually he starts to fidget, peering out the windows to scowl at passing trees. "We're losing track of him," he grumbles. "This forest is too thick."

Belle raises an eyebrow. "Maybe we should return home."

He snorts derisively, and says nothing.

Another quarter mile passes, but now the silence is not as total; Rumpelstiltskin drums his black claws restlessly against the seat, and Belle shifts under Regina's weight; she's lost all feeling in her right arm. Regina only lets out a tiny snore and burrows deeper into Belle's cloak, her hair falling in her face. Belle strokes it back before the girl catches any in her mouth.

She's so _young_.

"Don't do it," Belle says suddenly. "She's just a child. Don't put a bow in her hands and order her to kill someone. Please."

Rumpelstiltskin rolls his eyes. His scaly skin reflects the thick emerald of the woods; he looks greener than usual, more alive. "What do you think she's been learning all this time, dearie?" he asks, voice absolutely soaked in derision. "She's the apprentice of the _Dark One_. Did you imagine I've taught her to rescue kittens and crochet doilies?"

"N-no, of course not." What Regina has been learning from Rumpelstiltskin is something Belle has put a great deal of effort into _not_ thinking about; to do so makes her uneasy. "But there's a difference between brewing some kind of... I don't know, a potion that turns someone into a dog, and _murder_."

"Depends on what becomes of the dog," Rumpelstiltskin says airily, waving his fingers as though the distinction is meaningless. "Besides, this is hardly the last person who will die at her hands."

Belle stares at him in horror. "You can't know that."

"Of course I can." He grins at her expression. "Oh, yeah, I see the future. Did I never mention?"

The casual, devastating statement curls through Belle's mind like a wisp of smoke. It takes her a long time to speak, but when she does, her words are firm. "I don't believe you."

Rumpelstiltskin blinks. "What?"

"I don't believe you. Everyone decides their own fate, Regina included."

"Dearie, the point of fate is that you _can't_ decide it - and believe me, I know hers."

"And I suppose you've never been wrong?" Rumpelstiltskin glances away for a half-second, and Belle points at him with her free hand. "Hah!" she cries, triumphant. "You _have!_ You _have_ been wrong!"

"The details of the path hardly matter," he says dismissively. "The destination is always the same."

"Not if you choose otherwise."

"You're really not following the concept of _prophesy_ here, are you?"

"The only certain prophesy is a self-fulfilling one."

"Maybe I _want_ this prophesy fulfilled. Ever consider that?"

Belle pauses, considers this, considers _him_... then shakes her head. "No," she says, almost surprised by the confidence in her tone. "No. You don't. Even you're not _that_ dark."

Rumpelstiltskin smiles at her. It's like a death grimace. "You're right - I'm darker." He leans close. "_Much_ darker." Then he glances out the window again, and raises his hand; the carriage comes to a stop. "Now, as much as I enjoy your absurd sentimentality, I think we should speak to our fellow traveler."

Belle repeats: "Fellow traveler?" but Rumpelstiltskin doesn't elaborate; he only takes the thief's bow from where it is tucked to the side and hops gracefully from the carriage. Belle slides out from under Regina - the girl snuffles for a moment before rolling over to hide her face against the cushions - then accepts Rumpelstiltskin's hand in assistance. Refusing his help is tempting, but nothing would be proven by falling flat on her face in the mud.

On the other side of the crossroads stands a barred cart bearing prisoners and an official seal, driven by two soldiers in black cloaks with blacker looks. Beside them, a well-dressed man climbs from an ill-kept chestnut; Belle watches in distaste as he nearly stumbles to the ground before pulling a flask from the chestnut's saddle and drinking deeply. It's not even noon and the stench of whiskey carries from fifteen feet distant.

"What are you doing in my woods?" the man challenges. His words would be authoritative and possibly intimidating if he weren't listing to the right with every step.

Either Rumpelstiltskin is in a forgiving mood - unlikely - or feeling mischievous - probable - because he accepts the impertinent greeting without offense. "Pardon the intrusion, sheriff," he wheedles, sounding like nothing so much as Berkshire the Man-Pig. "I'm lookin' for a thief. He attacked me with this bow." He raises the weapon and waves it beneath the drunken sheriff's nose.

Belle would have to bite her lip to keep from smiling if she didn't know that the Dark One's mood could shift in the blink of an eye. Like a half-grown tiger cub, he might suddenly decide this man is less fun to bat around and more fun to dismember.

"I traced him as far as these woods," Rumpelstiltskin goes on, all dreadful, deeply facetious earnestness, "and then he vanished."

The sheriff's eyes have been on the bow since the moment Rumpelstiltskin raised it. "Yes," he says softly, touching the bent wood with a gloved fingertip. "I know exactly who you're after." Then he glances back up. "But I also know who _you_ are, Rumpelstiltskin."

Belle is surprised the sheriff can recognize anything while in this state, but Rumpelstiltskin just beams. "My reputation precedes me. Excellent!"

"Yes - as does your _penchant_ for making deals." The sheriff smiles, and Belle doesn't like the ugly look in his eye. She also notices the men guarding the prison wagon carry the same expressions of leering amusement. And they're directing it at _her_.

Belle is an adult woman. She has not lived her life locked in a tower. She knows perfectly well what sneers like that portend.

The sheriff continues to smirk insolently at Rumpelstiltskin; whatever this man _thinks_ he knows about the Dark One, he hasn't heard the whole story. Or his life goals include getting cursed. "I'll tell you where you can find your thief-" he takes another swig from his flask "-if you give _me_ something in return."

Until now, Belle had never imagined she'd see the Dark One look irritated to be making a deal. There's little he enjoys _more_. But his voice is reluctant as he says to the sheriff: "What do you want?"

The sheriff points directly at Belle. "A night with your wench."

The men on the wagon snicker.

Belle saw this coming, more or less; that doesn't make it any less disgusting to hear. But she's not worried, not really... until Rumpelstiltskin turns to look at her and she cannot, _cannot_, not for love nor money, read his expression.

He could, she suddenly realizes.

He _could_.

She's only a possession, after all, one of his trinkets, no different than the golden chalice that sits on the great room's pedestal. He could trade her to the drunken sheriff, the sheriff _and_ his men, and there would be absolutely _nothing_ she could do about it. Her well-being is solely dependent on the mercurial benevolence of the most powerful sorcerer in the world.

It is a wretched, _crushing_ feeling.

But the slap of awareness, however painful, strikes only in the space of a single heartbeat. Rumpelstiltskin pivots back to the sheriff. "She's not for sale," he says evenly.

The sheriff laughs this off, ogling Belle in a way that makes her wonder if her clothes have turned transparent. "You can't part with her for, say, an hour?"

Rumpelstiltskin is silent.

"Twenty minutes?"

She recognizes with a distant, morbid resignation that the deal is good. It wouldn't even delay their journey.

"Let me think," says the Dark One.

She gave her word. She gave her word and so she will not plead, she will not cry, she saved her village and that's all that matters, but she _will_ ask him to at least place a sleeping spell on Regina so the girl doesn't hear-

-the sheriff is gagging, Rumpelstiltskin is giggling, and there is something slimy and pink clasped between his claws.

Belle gasps.

It's a _tongue_.

"I propose a _new_ deal," her employer says, waving the purloined flesh in the sheriff's face as the other men scuttle backwards in a hurry. "I give you this back, and in return, you tell me everything you know about the man I am hunting." He titters. "Do you agree to my terms?"

The sheriff makes a choked noise. He claws at his throat.

"What was that?"

Another choke.

"Oh, I'll take that as a yes, then." A swirl of his hand turns the tongue to black smoke, which promptly flies back into the sheriff's mouth, who grabs for it as if to reassure himself that everything has reattached itself as it ought. Belle's half-tempted to look herself.

"Now," says Rumpelstiltskin, merriment gone, "_start talking_."

And the sheriff is all too willing to obey. "The thief that you're after," he blurts out, "I've been chasing him for years. He ruined me. He stole the woman I love-" an expression of genuine grief passes over his face "-and made me the laughing stock of all of Nottingham."

Based on what she's seen, Belle rather suspects the sheriff did a well enough job of _that_ all on his own; Rumpelstiltskin, on the other hand, sounds almost sympathetic as he asks: "Where can I find him?"

"Last I heard, he was hiding out in Sherwood Forest."

"And his name?"

The guards glance at each other anxiously; the sheriff scowls. "Robin Hood," he mutters. "He goes by Robin Hood."

"Wonderful. Our deal is concluded." Rumpelstiltskin allows the sheriff to retreat towards his wagon before he calls: "Oh, wait - just one more _tiny_ little thing before you go."

The sheriff halts mid-step.

"_You_, dearie," says Rumpelstiltskin, "have insulted my wench, as you so _charmingly_ referred to her." He crooks a finger, reeling the other man back in. "So let's see just how civil that tongue I put back in your head can be. Apologize."

Belle's mouth drops open, as does the sheriff's. "Apologize?" he echoes stupidly.

"Yes. It means to beg someone's pardon. Shall we deal for a dictionary first?"

The sheriff glares at Belle, scanning her with narrowed eyes. She glances down at herself; her cloak is wrinkled from the carriage ride, and beneath it her peasant dress, sensible enough for her housekeeping responsibilities, features faded spots in the skirts from weeks spent scrubbing stone floors. His lip curls. "But she's-"

"She's _mine_, dearie, and that puts her above any queen you've ever bowed to in your short, pathetic life. A life which, I should point out, is getting shorter all the time." Rumpelstiltskin - no, the Dark One - steps forward and points down at the mud beneath their feet. "Beg. Her. _Pardon._"

"I don't-" Belle starts to protest, but the sheriff, red-faced with both drink and humiliation, is already getting to his knees. "I'm sorry," he mutters.

"No, no, no, a bit more _prettily_ than that," Rumpelstiltskin says, lilt brimming with danger. "I've come to know this girl, and I can assure you, she is _very_ difficult to please."

A shudder passes through the sheriff's body; he bows his head lower. "I apologize, milady," he manages through clenched teeth, "for my boorish words. I regret any offense I may have caused you, and I most humbly beg your pardon."

"Granted," Belle says at once, wanting this moment to pass as swift as possible.

Rumpelstiltskin glances back. "Are you sure that's good enough for you, dearie? Would you like him to spend some time as a snail until he learns proper manners?"

"What? Of course not!"

"A mouse?"

"No!"

"A lizard, then."

The sheriff looks ready to faint.

"He's apologized, and I've accepted," Belle says desperately. "Let's just _go_."

Rumpelstiltskin stares at her for a moment, then sighs theatrically. "You're lucky the _wench_ has such a generous heart," he tells the sheriff. "Be on your way now, and _pray_ our paths don't cross again."

The sheriff cannot scramble back onto his horse fast enough, and when Belle climbs into their enchanted carriage, she is relieved to see Regina never even stopped snoring.

* * *

Her relief is short-lived.

It's not an hour before Rumpelstiltskin brings the carriage to a halt once more, and this time he reaches over to Belle's lap and shakes Regina's shoulder. "Up you get, dearie," he says. "It's time for your lesson."

Belle grows cold, her stomach sinking down to somewhere near her shoes as Regina blinks owlishly. "Did you find the thief?" she asks, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"He's nearby," Rumpelstiltskin tells her.

"He is? How do you know?"

"I have his name; a person becomes very easy to track after that." He lifts a hand, forestalling the further questions Belle can see Regina burning to ask. "That's for another day. Now the longer you take to get out of this carriage, dearie, the further you'll have to walk." Regina scrambles out, all legs and coltish youth; Rumpelstiltskin points at Belle. "You too, little maid," he says.

She sets her shoulders. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you teach that child to kill," she tells him.

"Well, you're welcome to sit, if you'd like," he retorts. "But you _will_ watch. That's the point of this whole expedition - to show you what your actions have wrought." He points to the door. "Now come along, or I'll use a spell to carry you after us like a sack of flour. And I suspect that would upset your delicate stomach."

Belle huffs out an angry breath, but climbs from the carriage and follows nevertheless.

The most alarming thing, she notes as they walk, is how _not_ alarmed Regina seems to be. She can't stop peppering Rumpelstiltskin with questions, and several of them are truly disturbing. "I've never shot a bow before," she tells him, stumbling as her foot catches on a tree root. "What if I miss?"

"This one _can't_ miss, dearie."

"Will I need more than one arrow?"

"Not if you choose the right spot."

"But _where_ is the right spot?"

"Where would you like it to be?"

Regina pauses, frowning thoughtfully. "The heart," she says after a moment. The frown deepens, and something dark shadows across her face. "He shot _you_ in the heart."

"And you didn't like it when that happened," Belle interjects hastily. "You didn't like it because shooting someone in the heart is _wrong_."

"But he did it first," Regina argues, using that eternal comeback of children through the whole of history. "It's only fair."

"That's not how it works, Regina."

"_Lady_ Regina."

Belle may explode with frustration. "I'll call you a lady," she snaps, "when you _act_ like one. Ladies _do not shoot people._"

"_This_ lady will," says Rumpelstiltskin. He stops in his tracks and points through the trees. "Found him."

They peer through the mists as one. It's true: beyond between the mossy pines, perhaps a hundred feet away, the thief stands next to a pathway, hidden - though not hidden enough - against the side of a tree. He is very clearly watching the road, if it can even be called such, overgrown as it is.

"I think he's waiting for someone," says Regina.

"Good. His friend can pick up the body."

"Listen," Belle pleads. "Listen to me, both of you. It's still not too late to turn back."

"Turn back? After coming all this way?" Rumpelstiltskin hands the girl the enchanted bow; it shrinks down once again to fit cleanly into her small hands. "What a terrible waste of a morning."

"He spent _three days_ in the dungeon. You've had your pound of flesh."

"And there's still a few more pounds to go." He squats down next to Regina, pulls a golden arrow free from the quiver on his back. It doesn't shrink as the bow did, and her grip is awkward. "Here," he tells her gently, showing her how to notch the arrow as though they're preparing to fire at nothing more than a haystack. "It fits against the string like this... no, just a little higher, on the nocking point... and-"

"Wait," says Belle. "Look: there's a wagon coming."

There is. A horse-drawn cart rattles down the dirt path, nearly dislodging its cargo with every yard traveled, until the thief steps out of the trees and holds up a hand. It immediately comes to a stop, and the thief approaches the wagon bed where, just visible beneath a thick pile of blankets, a gray-faced woman lies still as death. Even from here Belle can hear her breath rattling.

"That must be the one he stole from the sheriff," mutters Rumpelstiltskin. A muscle twitches in his jaw. "Let's send her home, shall we?"

Belle stares at him in disbelief. "Send her home? To the man you wanted to turn into a snail?"

Rumpelstiltskin's cheeks shine ever-so-slightly more golden - a blush, Belle realizes with surprise - but still says: "I imagine his manners will improve once his wife's seducer is six feet underground."

"No, that's not- I don't think the sheriff said they were married. Did he?"

The gold deepens. "She- well, it's hardly-"

"What is he doing?" interrupts Regina. She goes up on tip-toe to better see the drama playing out before them, then answers her own question: "He's using the fairy wand on the woman." They watch as the thief waves the wand an inch above the sick woman, from head to toe, holding it gently as blown glass. As he does, the gray fades from her skin, leaving behind a rich, warm brown.

Her eyes flutter open. The thief smiles broadly and touches her cheek with the softest, most tender of gestures.

"I was right!" cries Belle, nearly light-headed with relief. "He _did_ have a good reason for stealing the wand: he needed it to save the woman he loves!"

Regina cocks her head to the side. "That's an awful lot of magic he just used," she remarks. "He's going to pay big price for it."

"The biggest," Rumpelstiltskin confirms. He tilts the bow back up and readjusts the girl's grip. "When you pull back, keep your arm away from the-"

"Stop it!" Belle steps forward and grabs hold of Regina's wrist. "You both saw what happened! There's no reason to-"

She doesn't get to finish her sentence. Rumpelstiltskin waves his hand, and suddenly Belle is five feet back and three feet in the dirt, planted like a tuber. "That's enough," he growls. "No more interference, little maid."

"Don't you _dare_ - Rumpelstiltskin, you let me up _right now!"_

"Oh, don't make me gag you as well."

Regina glances back at where Belle claws at the loose earth; she bites her lip, then says: "Just wait for a few minutes. Then you can get out." She looks at Rumpelstiltskin. "Right?"

"Of course, of course." Regina exhales in relief as he indicates where the thief is now helping the woman climb from the cart. "Right now the throat is better exposed, so if you-"

"No. I want his _heart_."

Rumpelstiltskin pauses, and studies his apprentice. "All right," he says slowly. "The heart. Picture it in your mind. Keep it there. It's an enchanted bow. You won't miss."

They don't _need_ an enchanted bow, Belle notes in despair. The thief's back is facing them fully as the woman lowers herself to the ground; even _she_ could hit him from here-

No. "She's pregnant!" The swell of the woman's belly is unmistakable. "See? He wasn't only saving the woman he loves - he was saving the _mother of his child._"

"You're assuming that the child is _his,_" Rumpelstiltskin snarls.

There will be no help from that quarter - and anyway, he isn't the one holding the bow. Belle looks to Regina instead. "Regina, you _must_ listen to me," she says urgently. Her feet are beginning to go numb in the cold earth. "I know he's a thief. But he stole with good intentions."

Regina shakes her head. "Intent is meaningless."

"_No,_ it's _not!"_ Belle isn't eloquent, not the way Rumpelstiltskin is; she doesn't know how to spin words to gold, gold that glitters so brightly the listener is blinded. She only knows how to speak from the heart, and right now, in this moment, that may not be enough. "Look," she says, "sometimes- sometimes people do bad things when they're trying to do good things. And they shouldn't, of course they shouldn't, but if they _meant_ well, you need to- Regina, if you fire that arrow, _you won't ever be able to take it back_, do you understand? That woman will be all alone, her child will grow up fatherless, and _you_ will have been the one to do it. Can you live with that?"

The thief is gingerly helping the woman onto a horse.

Regina watches him, takes a deep breath, and raises the bow again. "Yes," she says. "I can. He shot Rumpelstiltskin."

And, sick inside, Belle knows Regina is right. She _can_ shoot him, and she _can_ live with it - not because she's heartless, but because no one has yet taught her the difference between justice and revenge.

"I know you're angry," she tries one last time, "and I know- I know you were frightened-"

"I'm _not frightened._" Regina's face flushes as she draws back the bow. "I'm not scared of _anything._"

"No, _stop-_"

-and Rumpelstiltskin grabs Regina's arm. "The cart," he tells her, voice flat.

"What?" says Regina.

"What?" says Belle.

"Shoot the cart." Regina continues to gape at him, and he snaps: "_Now_."

Regina looses the arrow. It buries itself in the side of the wagon with a dull thud; the thief and the pregnant woman start with alarm, then ride off as fast as their horse can move, hooves thundering against the earth, abandoning all else.

"I... I don't understand," Regina says to Rumpelstiltskin as he straightens up.

Rumpelstiltskin takes the bow, tucking it over his shoulder with the quiver, ignoring the girl's bafflement. "The thief knows we found him," he says, "and that we can find him again. Let him live in fear. Besides, my reputation can't spread if I kill _everyone_ who crosses me, can it."

"Um... no?"

"No. Now back to the carriage."

Belle clears her throat pointedly, which seems to remind Rumpelstiltskin of her existence; he waves his hand, and Belle stands on the earth as though she was never in it. Not an extra speck of dirt clings to her cloak. "Let's go," he says. "I'm bored of this forest."

Regina obeys, still looking thoroughly confused, but Belle waits as Rumpelstiltskin continues to stare off into the mists, expression blank. After a moment, she says: "That woman would have told the world what happened. You could have killed the thief and spread your reputation just as easily."

"Are you trying to talk me back into shooting him? He's not gone far; the arrow would probably still hit its target."

Belle steps forward, watches the side of his face. "Thank you," she says.

"You've done no one any favors today, dearie." The words are harsh, cold, empty with bitterness. "The future is what it is. You've only delayed the inevitable."

"You mean _you_ delayed the inevitable." He turns to face her - starting a bit at her closeness - and she points out: "I was buried waist deep in dirt, remember? _You're_ the one who told her to shoot the cart."

Rumpelstiltskin is silent. Belle waits for an explanation, a reprimand, a lecture... but she waits in vain. He says nothing.

"Aren't you coming?" Regina calls from the distance.

Belle shakes her head and follows behind.

* * *

It seems to Belle that the return trip takes even longer than the trip out. Neither adults are in the mood to talk, and Regina grows crosser and crosser with each failed attempt to initiate conversation. Eventually she settles into her own sullen silence, playing with the edge of a golden arrow until she scratches herself; the corresponding drop of blood that appears on Belle's thumb makes both she and Rumpelstiltskin snap at the girl, who grumbles under her breath for the next several hours. As the sun sets Rumpelstiltskin conjures sandwiches, of which he does not partake, in spite of Belle's urging; Regina demands to know where they came from and whether magic can really create food or just move it from one place to another until Rumpelstiltskin threatens to dose her with sleeping potion for the remainder of the journey.

By the time they finally return to the Dark Castle, no potion is needed; Regina stumbles off to bed without urging, though she still complains to herself between yawns; and Belle, drained in more ways than she knows how to describe, feels as though she could collapse for a week. "If you don't need me for anything else," she says, resisting the urge to rub her eyes, "then goodnight, Rumpelstiltskin."

She very nearly makes it out the door before he calls her back into the great room. She sighs, but returns obediently, only to see her employer fidgeting as nervously as she's ever seen him. "There _is_ something else," he says.

Belle waits. He doesn't expand on the statement, only looking into the fire. After few moments she prompts: "What is it?"

Rumpelstiltskin jumps, as thought he'd forgotten she was there. "Ah. Well. The, ah... the sheriff."

"Yes?"

He shifts his weight, drums his nails against the back of his chair, and studies the tapestries on the wall for a solid thirty seconds before he says: "Weren't you listening when I told you I wasn't that sort of a monster?"

"I- I beg your pardon?"

"No, the _sheriff_ begged your pardon. Because I _made_ him beg." Rumpelstiltskin is glowering at her now, seeming, of all things, _offended_. "He insulted you, and I made him apologize, so why did you behave as though _I_ was in the wrong?"

"Oh. That was- it was sort of- well..." Belle suddenly feels as awkward as Rumpelstiltskin looks; explanations have never come easily to her when exhausted, and she's already done so much explaining today. Or tried to, at least. "I... didn't like it," she says finally. "The way he knelt."

"Then you should have let me turn him into a snail."

"That- no, that isn't what I'm saying."

"Then what _are_ you saying?"

Belle hesitates, then hops up onto the table to sit; it seems too much to continue standing. "The people, they used to... they bowed to my father," she begins, trying to feel out the words. "Before the war, when there were still visitors our castle. And sometimes they bowed to me as well. But- but they did it because they _meant_ it. They bowed out of respect, or out of courtesy, or out of... I don't know. Many things. But not fear." She shrugs. Even her shoulders are sore. "I don't want anyone to... to kneel to me because they were _forced_ to. Not even someone like the sheriff."

Rumpelstiltskin stares at her.

"But," Belle adds hastily, "he _was_ rude, and he _did_ offend me. And I know your intentions were good. So... I am grateful, for that. Thank you."

The Dark One mouths wordlessly for a moment, before managing: "It's no matter."

"That's not true, it _does_ matter-"

But he's already striding from the room - running, more like. "Off to bed with you, dearie," he says. "And don't think this long day is going to get you out of your chores; I expect breakfast at the same time as always."

"I- yes, I understand," Belle says - but only to the swinging door. He is gone.

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein Belle has had quite enough, thank you._


	6. Chapter Four (A)

Belle doesn't realize how powerful Regina has become until the morning she tries to serve tea and one of the cups skitters out of her reach.

She frowns at the offending porcelain, wonders if she's seeing things, and then reaches for it again. It scoots back another few inches, just beyond Belle's fingers.

This reeks of a certain sorcerer's devilish sense of humor. "Stop that," she says to Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin looks up from his omelette - it's a rare morning wherein there have been no teasing complaints about her cooking, thanks to a stack of recipes that mysteriously turned up in the kitchen a week previous. "Stop what?"

"_That_." Belle nods at the cup, circling the table to try and capture it from the other side. "If you don't want any tea, you could just say so."

"Of course I want tea, dearie, when do I not?"

"I- well, I don't know, but-" She leans forward, arm outstretched, and scowls as her quarry skips away once more. "Oh, _honestly!_"

There's a smothered giggle. Belle turns to Regina, whose entire being has suddenly begun to ooze with angelic innocence. "Are you doing this?" she demands.

"No."

"Then who is, exactly?"

"I don't know," Regina lies. "Maybe the tea set is enchanted and we never noticed!"

Rumpelstiltskin raises an eyebrow, steeples his scaled fingers together, and watches the exchange without comment.

Belle scowls. "This is ridiculous," she grumbles. Quick as she can, she lunges forward-

-and the cup leaps into open air, where it hovers for perhaps half a second before falling to the floor with a _clink_.

"Oops," says Regina.

Belle sighs, kneels to the carpet, and reaches past the table leg - only to wince as she grabs ahold of something sharp. "It's chipped," she scolds, feeling about for the missing piece of the now-jagged lip. Perhaps she can glue it back together; but, no, all that is left is shattered slivers to be picked from the carpet fibers.

Regina leans around the side of her chair to look. "You can hardly see it!" she protests.

"Yes, but I am going to cut myself cleaning up."

"Oh. I... I'm sorry." Belle glances up and is surprised to see that, for once, the girl is telling the truth. The apology is sincere. "I didn't mean to. It was an accident."

"It's just a cup." Rumpelstiltskin has been watching Belle on her hands and knees, but now he turns his attention to Regina. "Though it's still broken. You cast another spell without thinking about the price, didn't you."

Regina seems even more woebegone at his words. "I thought it would be funny," she says. Then she brightens, beaming at her master hopefully. "But it worked, didn't it? The spell? The cup _did_ move!"

As she stands there's a moment where Belle believes, _truly_ believes, that Rumpelstiltskin will take a stern, well-deserved disciplinary approach to the situation; but then she sees his thin lips twitch, and she knows she has lost her support. "It did," he tells Regina. "But you've a long way to go, dearie." And, all nonchalance, he waves his hand.

The salt and pepper shakers begin to waltz across the table. The pepper leads; the salt twirls about it gracefully, the cut crystal sparkling with tiny rainbows through every turn and spin. Regina squeals in delight; even Belle cannot help but laugh. The movements are so precise she can't imagine they'd be more graceful with arms and legs.

The shakers dance closer and closer to Regina's plate. She reaches out to touch one-

-and the pepper vaults forward to upend over her omelette.

"There's the price of your magic," says Rumpelstiltskin, giggling as Regina's glee turns to squawks of indignation. "Ah, ah, ah - no complaining, and no more using petty tricks to pester Belle."

Regina glowers at the now blackened eggs. "_You_ pester her all the time," she mutters.

Belle glances at Rumpelstiltskin, whose expression turns a bit... nervous? "I do nothing of the sort," he says with great dignity.

"What about when you made the feather duster invisible?"

Belle's mouth drops open. "That was _you?_" she cries, putting her hands on her hips.

"Ah, well-"

"I searched for that duster for _two days!_"

"You- yes, but, uh, you shouldn't have forgotten it in my tower to begin with-"

"_Two days,_ Rumpelstiltskin!"

"It _did _reappear eventually! And I hope you've learned not to leave things where they don't belong, little maid."

Belle plucks the pepper shaker from Regina's side, storms to the opposite end of the table, and dumps it over the Dark One's plate. "There," she says as he gapes at her. "No more using petty tricks to pester Belle."

Rumpelstiltskin continues to gawk for a full minute, then turns back to Regina and points at her accusingly. "_You_," he declares, "are _disloyal_."

Regina just smiles and takes a bite of her omelette without so much as a flinch.

* * *

Unfortunately, Regina's _jokes_ don't stop.

To Belle's profound relief - for what nearly became of the thief still weighs on her mind - the endless tricks seem all mischief and no malice. And they are, at least, no longer played directly _on_ Belle... but that is small comfort when she is still the one who has to clean up the messes and otherwise deal with the aftermath.

The imbuement spell is still the girl's favorite. Belle can't convince anyone to drink navy blue milk; Baloo metamorphoses into an alarming shade of pink; and even Rumpelstiltskin sends Regina to bed without supper when he discovers his spinning wheel has turned coral, which Belle has to polish for hours until the natural grain is again visible.

The mice in the dungeon spend six and a half hours the size of barn cats. The strawberries in the garden smell of oysters. All the flour turns to cornmeal. But it's not until Belle discovers the library realphabetized by _title_ instead of _author_ - a result of Regina's steadily growing literacy - that she barges into Rumpelstiltskin's laboratory to demand his intervention. "You have to stop teaching her these spells," she announces without preamble. "She's a menace."

Rumpelstiltskin doesn't even look away from his potion. "I've taught her nothing, dearie," he says. "The girl's begun to improvise. Precocious, isn't she?"

"Precocious my foot." Belle isn't sure exactly when she stopped addressing the Dark One as her master and started speaking to him as an... well, not _equal_, precisely, but without the sort of deference she'd expected to show for the rest of her life. But she has - and, oddly enough, he doesn't seem to mind. "You're encouraging her."

"It's nothing to fret over. She's bored, that's all."

"What? How can she possibly be bored? Have you _seen_ your library?"

"Yes, yes, but very few ten-year-olds enjoy spending every afternoon with their noses in books."

"_I_ did."

"That's because you're exceptional." Rumpelstiltskin's hands pause over a shimmering bottle for a half-second before continuing, "Children become restless when it's warm, dearie. Take her outside and wear her out; she'll be a different girl, I promise you."

"Wait! Why- why should _I_ have to do it? Why shouldn't she take a break from whatever taught her to unravel tapestries from five rooms away? I haven't a clue how to repair those, you know!"

"Because my lessons matter _far_ more than yours, and because this is what you're here for. Now do as you're told."

She harrumphs, but when she finds Regina painting her bedroom ceiling two hours later, Belle decides Rumpelstiltskin's advice surely can't make anything worse.

Belle's intention is to _move_ their lessons out of doors, rather than abandon them until such a time as Regina is willing to sit still for anyone other than Rumpelstiltskin again; she has developed a taste for watching a pupil grow and change based on education of her own devising, and is not willing to give it up entirely. So she locates a few tomes on basic horticulture, with the thought of discussing the various flora in the garden. This falls through once Belle realizes that there are no references in her books for bushes that bloom five different types of flowers and that Regina prefers to play in the orchard. Eventually she resigns herself to spending a few hours in the sunshine every day, teaching nothing but also cleaning nothing. If Regina can have a vacation, Belle reasons to herself, surely she can as well.

Then there comes an afternoon wherein Belle is stretched out in the soft grasses - who would have thought the Dark One in his Dark Castle would have such lovely grounds? Belle wondered sometimes if he'd had a previous caretaker, but found the thought not at all to her liking - and Regina calls from her perch in an apple tree: "Did you know there's a town?"

Belle looks up. Regina is very high, which had made Belle desperately nervous at first, both for the possibility of Regina injuring herself and the more selfish knowledge that should she break her arm Belle would immediately suffer the same, but the girl has yet to so much as wobble upon a branch. "What town?"

Regina points. They are close to the north wall, and it's clear that from her position and height Regina has an excellent view into the valley. "It's down there. Not far from the road. There's a market and houses." She pauses. "And people."

Oh. Oh, dear. "That sounds lovely," Belle says, choosing her words with care. "But... I'm not sure whether you can-"

"I know. I can't go." There is a sigh that nearly rattles the leaves. "We're to stay here forever."

"Not- not _forever_ forever, surely." At least not for Regina; Belle holds no illusions that _she_ will ever see outside the castle walls again, but if Regina is to be a great sorceress, Rumpelstiltskin must intend to take her someplace where she can demonstrate her capabilities. Belle tries not to think about what those capabilities will entail. "Just be patient, Lady Regina. You'll see the world."

"When?"

"Well, it's hard to say, but-"

"That means _never_."

Normally Belle would take Regina to task for pouting, but her voice holds a note of honest melancholy Belle hasn't heard from her before.

She realizes Regina has been looking out of this spot by the north wall for weeks.

"I'll speak to Rumpelstiltskin," Belle hears herself say.

* * *

It takes Belle three days to work up the nerve to broach the subject, most of which she spends regretting her rash promise. She's not a fool; no good is likely to come of the request. But _someone_ has to ask, and Regina shouldn't have to be the one to do it. And really, if Rumpelstiltskin doesn't like it, he should have been more specific when he first ordered Belle to _look after_ the girl. Such phrasing lends itself to a great deal of interpretation.

She waits until after dinner, when Regina is half-asleep in front of the fire and Rumpelstiltskin is in one of his quieter moods. He has been caught up for over an hour in his spinning, still with focus; basket after basket has spilled over with gold thread, unnoticed and unheeded by its creator.

"Why do you spin so much?" Belle asks, for it seems as good an opening as any.

He doesn't answer, but he pauses just long for her to know he is listening. Encouraged, she continues: "It's just... you've spun more straw into gold than you could ever spend." In addition to drawing him into conversation, she is genuinely curious. She's cleaned nearly a dozen rooms filled with shining bobbins. Even if the Dark One could have need of money, he cannot need so _much_, can he?

There is still no reply. It occurs to Belle that perhaps this was a more complicated question than she had intended; just as she is about to apologize, he says, quiet and human: "I like to watch the wheel. Helps me forget."

Belle frowns. "Forget what?"

The wheel stops entirely. He tilts his head to the side as if in deep thought - and then he titters, solemnity vanished in an instant. "I guess it worked!"

This overcomes Belle's standard rule of not encouraging Rumpelstiltskin's quips; she cannot stifle her laugh, even as she shakes her head at the bad joke. It earns her one of the moments of pensive observation she has been receiving more and more frequently. She doesn't mind those; she is pretty sure it means she is confusing him. It is only fair. He confuses her often enough.

"I'd like to learn that," Regina says suddenly. Both adults look at her - Belle catching her heel on the rug and nearly falling - and Regina clarifies: "Spinning straw into gold, I mean. Will you teach me?"

In the silence that follows, Belle swears the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.

After a moment Rumpelstiltskin says, oh so quietly: "No. I won't."

His temper hovers around the edge of the room, like the tickling scent of ozone preceding a summer storm; but either Regina does not recognize the sudden change, or she does not heed it. "What kind of magic makes it work? Do you have to think about it, or is it just-"

"_No. _And if you ask me again, those will be the _last_ words you ever say." The wheel begins to turn again. "Now get out of my sight."

Regina goes off to her chambers, face milk-pale but head held high, as though she were above being injured by her mentor's bullying words. Belle stays behind, seething the whole while; she has many, _many_ things she would like to say, but Rumpelstiltskin is completely ignoring her, so she holds her tongue and bides her time. She will sit here all night if she has to. He will have to acknowledge her sooner or later.

But she only lasts fifteen minutes before she _has_ to make her opinion known. "That was cruel."

"I didn't ask for your input." His spinning doesn't miss a beat. "And I won't be teaching _you_ either, if that's what you're waiting for."

"Of course not. What possible use could I have for gold?"

"None at all, dearie, none at all, unless you'd like to catch a set of earrings in that feather duster you love so much. It would make a _charming_ picture, though." Rumpelstiltskin sets down his spindle and looks at Belle; somehow, without realizing it, she has come to stand directly on the other side of the wheel. "Tell me what you're after, or go away."

Oh, he is not going to take this well. Still, Belle forges ahead; nervous or not, after that display, she is determined to get Regina what she wants. "I was- I was thinking, perhaps, that you might need something from the town in the valley. Straw, maybe? And that... as your maid, I could, ah, go there, and purchase it. For you."

Rumpelstiltskin is silent for so long, and with such an unfathomable expression, that Belle starts to twist her fingers behind her back. She isn't afraid of him, but that doesn't mean she _enjoys_ hostile conversations, which this is unquestionably about to become.

_Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow._

Rumpelstiltskin starts to laugh in that high, nasty way of his. "_Straw_," he repeats mockingly. "Oh, yes, I'm sure fetching _straw_ is all you intend to do."

"It is!" she protests. Then she bites her lower lip, screws up her courage, and adds: "All right, and- and more, yes. I was thinking I could... take Regina with me."

Something flashes in Rumpelstiltskin's eyes.

"You were right," Belle goes on. "She's restless. But it's- it isn't just the weather. She's lonely. She's _so_ lonely that she's fascinated by a tiny little village at the bottom of a valley. She wants to see more of the world than a hog farm and a stone castle."

"She will." He grins, all teeth and no humor. "Soon, soon, soon... but not yet."

"I know, and I told her that, but-"

"Oh, you _know_, do you?" Rumpelstiltskin stands. It astonishes Belle sometimes that he's so slight - less than half a head taller than her, and she herself is the shortest person she's ever met - but still projects more coiled danger than the tallest soldiers in the realm. "Then why come to me with this? Who is it that _really_ wants to _see the world:_ her, or _you?_"

Belle takes a deep breath. "It's true," she confesses, "I _did_ want to see the world. But I understand that that isn't going to- to work out."

"You're right. It's not. And if this is you trying to break our deal, dearie, I think I should tell you that you're doing a _very_ poor job of it."

"I don't mean to break our deal!"

"Of _course_. You'll go down to the town and _fetch straw._" His mouth curls into a sneer. "And where will you go after that, I wonder?"

"Nowhere!"

"Do you think your father will take you in after your _association_ with me? I rather doubt it, little maid. And I imagine you'll expect a _rescue_ when the clerics try to burn you and my apprentice at the stake. You'll be waiting awhile."

"It's only a trip to the village!"

"Oh, no, no, no." He points one clawed finger an inch from her nose. "You will have to do better, dearie; it's been a long time since I've been foolish enough to believe _that_. It's a _lovely_ escape plan - or it _would_ be if I didn't know perfectly well that I'd never see you again. _Either_ of you. So _just._ _Stop._"

He is working himself into a fine rage, but in that moment it is _nothing_ to Belle's fury. "I am not lying to you," she says, deadly emphasis on each syllable. "I promised that I would go with you forever."

He scoffs. "As though the promise of a woman means anything."

Belle slaps him.

It can't have hurt - he's the _Dark One_ - but he slowly raises his hand to his cheek and stares at her in utter disbelief.

Belle takes a moment to compose herself - she can't remember being so angry in her entire life, not once - and says: "If you weren't going to accept my word, you should never have made a deal with me in the first place. Good night, Rumpelstiltskin." Then she turns on her heel and leaves the room without a backward glance.

* * *

In the morning Rumpelstiltskin is gone. A note waits on the table for Regina, warning her that his absence will be no reason for her to skirt her studies, and that he expects her to have finished gathering components for their latest potion when he returns in three days time.

There is not a note for Belle.

This is no-nevermind to her, of course. _He_ is the one in the wrong. He has been rude, and insulting, and unkind, and if he thinks going off in a sulk will earn him an apology, he is entirely mistaken. He has had that slap coming for _months_ and Belle is not in the least bit sorry for it. She works for an absolute beast, and though she will not be breaking her word, there was nothing in their deal that ever said she had to be polite, or even speak to him. Ever again.

"Is something wrong?" Regina asks, peering up at Belle curiously. "You look like something's wrong."

Belle finds a smile, but it feels awkward on her face. "Of- of course not. I'm rather tired, is all."

"You're probably tired because were crying again last night," the girl observes, taking a bite of porridge. "It was even noisier than usual. I thought you were all finished with being homesick."

"It strikes me at odd times," says Belle.

Regina shrugs, indicating her loss of interest, and begins listing off all the ingredients she'll need to gather. Then she pauses for a few moments, and says: "So... Rumpelstiltskin will be gone for three days?"

"I suppose so. You know how his sense of time can be."

Regina hums off-handedly, which is more than enough to make Belle suspicious. "Regina?"

"_Lady_ Regina." The girl hops up from the table. "I am going to do some spell practicing today. I'll see you at dinner, maid."

Oh, yes. Belle is suspicious. But Regina is good as the gold by the spinning wheel for the next two days, and leaves Belle with not a single action to reprimand. This, rather than lulling her into reassurance, only makes her more certain that the girl is plotting something.

She's nearly relieved to have her skepticism confirmed that second night, when she hears Regina creeping down the hallway shortly after the clock strikes ten. In her chambers, not yet undressed, she puts aside her book and considers simply opening the door and ordering Regina back to bed; but her curiosity gets the better of her. She winds up following the oblivious girl - trying so hard to hide in a dark cloak - down the stairs, out the door, and across the castle grounds beneath a glowing moon in a cloudless sky.

It isn't until Regina reaches a small gate concealed within the stone of the north wall that Belle speaks up. "What do you think you're doing?" she asks, arms crossed.

Regina jumps, then pushes her hood back. Her expression is unconcerned and not the slightest bit guilty. "Opening the door," she explains, as though she's doing nothing more than buttering toast. She makes a complicated gesture; a small wave of purple smoke penetrates the stone, and the hidden door opens with a _click_. "These locks are flimsy."

"I don't think Rumpelstiltskin would want you to do that."

Five months ago, the mere suggestion of the Dark One's disapproval would have stopped Regina in her tracks. It _does_ give her a moment of pause, and her eyes flick up to the laboratory tower - but then a slow, conspiratorial smile spreads across her face. "I know," she whispers to Belle, "but he's not _here_."

Regina is growing up, Belle realizes, and it is not going to be a pleasant process.

"I'm not going for very long," Regina promises, eyes wide, laying on a not-inconsiderable charm. "I'm not _running away_. But all those people, they've been setting up for a- a party, or a festival, I'm not sure, but I've seen them. There's a pole and a bonfire and wagons came in- oh, please, Belle, can't I go? Just for a little while?"

"Rumpelstiltskin said no." The girl's face falls, and Belle adds soothingly, "I understand. I do. I'm curious about the village too, but-"

Regina starts to smile.

Belle can see the thought form in her head before she even voices it. "No," she says firmly. "No, I am _not_ going with you."

"But you just said you were curious!"

"That isn't what I-"

"And aren't you _supposed_ to keep an eye on me?"

"Why do the two of you _never_-"

"That means you're not even breaking the rules!"

"Regina-"

But Regina folds her arms mutinously. "I'm going no matter what," she announces, "and you can't stop me. Besides, why _should_ you stop me, anyway? Why shouldn't we get to go?"

Belle looks at the set of the girl's shoulders, then at the open gate door.

Regina has a point.

And if Rumpelstiltskin didn't want to trust the word of a _woman_ anyway, well, perhaps he should give them more reason to trust _him_.

Belle says: "You are going to be in bed by the stroke of midnight, do you understand?"

The words are barely out before Regina runs through the gate.

Their trip down the valley involves a steep, rocky path, overgrown by thorns and featuring nine or ten different places to fall and break one's neck, but Regina and Belle walk along it as easily as a paved market street. When Belle asks Regina if she's enchanting their steps, Regina only looks at the sky and comments on how lovely and bright the moon is. All Belle can do is sigh, be silently grateful for the easy passage, and hope that the price for Regina's magic this evening won't be too high.

The path ends abruptly at a rickety wooden bridge over a stream running down the mountain; beyond is the hamlet proper, about the size of one of Avonlea's poor provincial towns that were demolished early by the wars. A little main square with a wide stone fountain, a handful of shops, a few houses in the darkness beyond; it can't be home to more than forty or fifty villagers, but the square is filled with twice those numbers: an enormous bonfire, and fiddlers, and dancers, and traveling merchants hocking wares, all mixed in with a crowd of peasants steadily working their way towards inebriation. The people are packed in tightly, and the noise is impressive, especially compared to the near silent lives they've been living.

Even in the darkness Belle can see that Regina's face has turned a pasty white. Belle hesitates, then touches her shoulder; the girl leaps nearly a foot in the air. "I'm not frightened," she says at once.

"I never said you were."

"But you were thinking it, weren't you? I _know_ you were, but I'm _not_. I'm not frightened at all. They- they are just peasants. Sorceresses aren't frightened of peasants. Rumpelstiltskin isn't frightened of peasants."

Belle glances about nervously, but no one is close to the bridge. "Regina-"

"_Lady_ Regina."

"Lady Regina, I think we had best not say his name. Not unless you want to call him." Or, for that matter, Belle thought, announce who they were to the whole of the village. Belle couldn't imagine that the maid and apprentice of the Dark One would be allowed to mingle freely amongst a small solstice festival.

"All right. But I'm not frightened."

Belle takes in the girl's trembling lip and stiff spine. She holds out her hand. "_I'm_ a bit frightened," she says mildly. "I always am when I meet new people, especially so very many of them."

Regina's gaze darts from Belle's face to her outstretched arm, then back again. She swallows visibly before she declares: "Well then, if- if would make you feel braver to hold my hand, you may." Then she grabs Belle's fingers and grips them so fiercely Belle suspects she may sport bruises come morning.

"Thank you," says Belle, hiding a smile. "I feel much better now."

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein everyone pretends to be ordinary._


	7. Chapter Four (B)

Belle is not a total stranger to village festivals. While Lady Cecile had understood the importance of propriety, she had always encouraged her young daughter to go out and mingle with those who lived under Sir Maurice's protection, regardless of station or status. _Observing the distinction of class is absurd at this age_, her mother had told Belle's frequently aggrieved nanny, _and she's far more likely to take harm from living without other children. _The last had been said with great melancholy, though at the time Belle did not understand why. It was not until years later that a chambermaid, while explaining female matters, had told her that her mother tried to bring her a sibling more than half a dozen times, and that the last attempt was what killed her.

After her mother's death, a small conglomerate of women - nannies, governesses, tutors, even dressers - took over her rearing, and informed her loving but uncertain father that the time had come to stop indulging associations with peasants and prepare his daughter for a life of embroidery stitches. And thus it was that Belle's social outings - before the war, when there still _were_ social outings - became entirely comprised of visits to nearby courts, with their balls, weddings, christenings, and the other sort of twenty-utensiled affairs attended by girls whose futures rested upon gentlemen's arms.

This market square of half-intoxicated townsfolk is therefore a bit beyond Belle's recent experience. The noise is so tremendous that she's stunned they couldn't hear it from the castle: fiddles and flutes and shouting and laughter and more, rolled together in a mass of humanity that certainly doesn't care which fork one uses for the _amuse-bouche_, or if one even uses forks at all. But as they hover at the edge of the crowd, in the shadows of the towering oaks, it becomes clear that _her_ discomfort is nothing to Regina's. Belle's fingers are going numb from the girl's grip.

"Maybe..." Regina gulps. "I think maybe Ru- maybe _he_ wouldn't like it if we were down here after all. I- I think this is much more dull than I expected it to be. I think maybe we should go home."

But Belle has not snuck away from the Dark Castle in the middle of the night only to see Rumpelstiltskin's apprentice shy away from her first, and likely her only, chance to mingle with people who don't yet cower at her name. "It will be all right," she says softly. She scans the crowd, rejecting the dancing - and more adult activities - near the towering bonfire, the drinking by the barrels in front of the dilapidated tavern, the haggling by the covered stalls of wares. None are likely to make the girl any more comfortable.

Then Belle notices a few children milling about an ancient stable on the far side of the square. That seems more promising. "Would you like to see the horses, Regina?"

"_Lady_ Regina."

"Not here, you're not."

Regina scowls... then, to Belle's surprise, perks up slightly. "You're right," she says. "I'm not, here. That's a good idea. We are different people tonight. You'll be - you will be Margie. And I'll be Verna. It'll be fun."

Belle doesn't much care for her new name, but if a new identity will make Regina feel secure, then she'll tolerate it - for a night. "Would _Verna_ like to see the horses, then?"

The girl thinks for a moment, then says: "Yes. I think Verna is the sort of person who would." She pauses. "Is Margie the sort of person who would like to see the horses, too?"

"I think Margie is the sort of person who will walk around a bit, but will stay where Verna can always see her," says Belle. "Because Margie thinks Verna is the sort of person who will have a good time talking to other children about horses all on her own."

"Does... does Margie think Verna is the sort of person other children will like?"

"Yes," Belle says firmly. "Margie absolutely thinks Verna is the sort of person other children will like - _if_ Verna doesn't insist the other children call her _Lady_ Verna."

Regina wrinkles her nose. "That's ridiculous," she informs Belle with great seriousness. "Remember, Verna isn't a lady."

"Oh. Of course. My apologies, Verna."

"It's all right," Regina says, waving her hand airily. "It _is_ a very easy mistake to make." At this, Regina glances down at herself; Belle looks as well. The cloak Regina chose is dark and common enough, but the dress underneath is satin with gold stitching. "Too easy, I think. Verna wouldn't wear something like this."

And before Belle can stop her, Regina twists her hands in a complicated pattern. The icy sensation of an enchantment being cast washes over Belle from head to toe; when the purple smoke clears, Regina's hair is tied back in a simple scarf, and her dress has turned to a dull gray wool. "There," she says, satisfied. "Now I look like Verna."

"You shouldn't have done that!" Belle whirls about, but no one seems to have noticed the two figures by the wood. "They will see - no more magic, Regina!"

"_Verna._"

"Verna, then! Verna doesn't know how to cast spells, all right?"

Regina heaves a long-suffering sigh. "All right. I suppose Verna doesn't." She glances up at Belle - no, _above_ Belle - and winces. "Oops. I only meant to do highlights..."

Belle blinks, then grabs for a lock of her hair.

It is blonde.

"What did you do?" she demands, urgently pulling the rest of her curls free from their ribbons; they have _all_ transformed to a fair, pale flaxen. "Oh, _no..._"

"Margie needed _something_ different," says Regina, in the tones of someone explaining the obvious. "And you're already dressed like a peasant. Besides, it's very pretty."

"This had _better_ wear off, Re- _Verna_."

"It will in a few hours. Probably. And... and Margie will be much easier for Verna to spot in the crowd, I think, with hair that color. No one else has it."

Belle is almost more frustrated with Regina for saying something Belle _can't_ be frustrated with. "I suppose that's true," she grumbles. "Now _go_. You are still going to be in bed by midnight. I'll be right near by."

Regina - Verna - nods. She takes a deep breath, straightens her scarf, and creeps around the edge of the forest towards the stable with slow, hesitant, but steady steps.

And Belle, despite her annoyance and misgivings, feels the strangest surge of pride.

* * *

Belle has spoken to no one except Rumpelstiltskin and Regina since winter, the thief and the odious sheriff aside. While this has not been the hardship it might appear - Belle has always been of a solitary disposition, a bit odd by the standards of those around her, and the Dark Castle's library is all the companionship she could wish for - it _does_ make mingling with a crowd of rowdy peasants a bit of an adjustment. Steering clear of the bonfire and the barrels, Belle settles on browsing through the wagon-set stalls of the market, smiling politely as each merchant suggests this trinket or that trifle. And she can't help but laugh when one old woman assures her of the effectiveness of an anti-aging draught, guaranteed to keep her hair blonde and bright and her cheeks from ever sagging. "I see the beginnings of lines about your eyes," the crone warns her, as though announcing the first signs of plague. "Such a lovely face you have, but if you are not careful, pet, soon your love will no longer pay you heed."

It takes a great deal of effort for Belle to swallow back an unmannerly chortle. "I appreciate the offer, but I have no love to care whether I've developed lines or not." The idea of purchasing an elixar from a common apothecary, when she lives with the greatest potion master in the world, amuses her to no end. "So I and my face will manage, I should think."

"You certainly will," says a voice over her shoulder. "And better."

Later, when Belle thinks of this evening, she will not be able to picture the man's face. She will not remember the timbre of his voice. She will not recall his height, his weight, the shade of his skin, or anything that distinguishes him from any other villager making his way through the square. She will, in fact, recall very little at all; only that she met an ordinary man in an ordinary town and that it was an ordinary conversation.

But that? That is later. Now, Belle smiles at the man, recognizing that he has paid her a generous if somewhat stock compliment, which no one has done is quite a long time. "Thank you," she says. "That's very sweet."

"The truth is never sweet. It's only the truth." He nods to the old woman; she glowers at him in reponse, knowing full well he is stealing a potential customer. "Though if you would _like_ a brew of sage and syrup, I'll be happy to purchase it for you."

"Oh- oh, no, no." Belle shakes her head. "I couldn't possibly."

"You couldn't?"

"No. I don't accept gifts from strangers."

"That's very wise. Perhaps we are not meant to be strangers, then."

This is a line which, in the wrong mouth, would have been presumptuous, or even a bit alarming. But the man says it with such an impassive archness that Belle cannot help but laugh. "Perhaps we are not," she concedes. "Though I would still rather not drink the tonic."

"As the lady wishes," he says, bowing very slightly. There's something odd about that, something familiar but not familiar, but the moment Belle tries to focus on it this idea slides away like oil across water.

Briefly she thinks this is odd, but then that feeling slides away as well.

It takes Belle a moment to realize the man has introduced himself. "Oh! I'm- I'm B- Margie," she replies, embarrassed that she failed to note his name. It would be impolite to ask for it now.

"_Margie_," he says, testing the word on his tongue, turning it over and over like a piece of chipped china, a buyer at market searching for imperfections. Then he smiles, a little sardonically. "It doesn't suit you."

This makes Belle laugh as well. "Thank you again," she says. "You've no notion how happy I am to hear that."

The crowd is pressing closer; there are women who are far more interested in the sage-and-syrup youth tonic than Belle, and she steps away to settle herself on the edge of a nearby stone fountain. The man steps with her. "You've not been to town before," he says. It is not a question.

"No. I- I'm not from here." Belle can feel her face heating already. One would think that after two seasons of living with Regina she would have developed greater skills for lying, but it hasn't come to pass. "I am only attending the festival."

"All alone? You must plan to meet with someone."

"No, no, not alone. I've brought my- my niece." Belle nods towards the stable, where Regina stands close to a brown-headed boy near her age, clearly fascinated by his demonstration of how to brush a dappled mare's flank. "She's... she's been a bit, ah, a bit lonely, and she very much wanted to come. And as I've never been to the village before, how could I plan to meet with someone?"

The man hums, as though acknowledging she's made something of a point that is not quite prepared to concede. "Ah, but you've met with _me_," he announces after a moment. "So you _are_ seeking new... _friendships_; you cannot deny it."

She chuckles again. "Very clever of you, sir; I won't argue." He is flirting, which doesn't shock Belle. What _does_ surprise her is that she's enjoying it. Perhaps she's lonelier than she thought. "But I think everyone makes new friends at a festival." She nods to the barrels, and the men and women dipping in tin cups. "I suspect _that_ is why."

He arches an eyebrow. "You've been at the mead."

"I haven't, I assure you."

"But you laugh at _cleverness_."

"I _always_ laugh at cleverness."

"You most certainly do not." For a moment, Belle swears she sees a blush cross the man's cheeks, though again the detail melts away before she can be sure. He coughs. "That is, I doubt anyone does."

"Hmm." Belle considers this, then allows, "I- I always laugh at well-meant cleverness, I suppose. Mean-spirited wit isn't nearly as amusing."

"I wouldn't know," he murmurs. Belle is about to ask him to expand on the topic, but before she can he continues: "So you've only left home for your... niece, then."

"It was her idea. And I wouldn't say I've _left_ home-"

"But you're not _there_, are you? Is there no one who would be concerned to discover his house empty of its inhabitants?"

Belle fidgets a little at this, glancing up the mountain. She cannot see the Dark Castle, though it ought to be clearly visible in the moonlight. "Well, there... there is," she confesses. "My- my, um, brother. We live with my brother, but he isn't- that is, he's not in today, so he needn't worry."

The silence that follows this statement is long and punctuated by the start of raucous, impressively lewd singing around the bonfire. "Brother," the man says tonelessly.

"Yes." Oh, to have Regina's talent for deception. "I live with him, keep house, care for my niece. But he's away, so he'll not worry that we're out for a single evening."

He snorts. "That's a grand assumption."

"True, but it's _my_ assumption to make," she replies pertly. "And as it's the only evening I've had out in longer than I care to remember, I'd rather not spend it fretting, if it's all the same to you."

The man stares at her for a moment, then huffs in faux-annoyance. "A compelling argument. Go ahead, then: be merry in haste, and repent at leisure." Belle bursts out in laughter, and he looks surprised again. "You're more easily amused than I realized," he says.

"I appreciate terrible puns even more than cleverness." Her stomach chooses that moment to interrupt the conversation with a loud, embarrassing growl. It has been a long time since supper. "Sorry," she says, wincing sheepishly.

He stands at once. "The tavern is serving, I believe."

Belle catches his arm before he takes more than a step away. His sleeve feels odd under her hand, not very much like cloth at all, but the thought disappears as fast as it comes. "No, I can't." A flush rises to her cheeks. "I don't- that is, I haven't the coin for food."

"You 'haven't the coin'?" the man repeats, sounding astonished. "You left home, and you didn't bring any money with you?"

"As I said, I didn't _leave_ home. And the money is my- my brother's, not mine."

"It's your household as well, isn't it?"

"Not really, no." Belle flinches, thinking of Robin Hood. "And my brother doesn't care for thieves."

"Ah." The man very carefully removes her hand from his arm, as gingerly as he might pluck a butterfly from a rose. He says, quite lightly, "Your brother sounds like an ogre."

Belle frowns. "Don't say that." She's seen ogres, heard ogres, watched ogres send men home in pieces. "That is not a small comparison to make."

"What is he, then?"

She considers the question more carefully than it probably warrants, sorting through the complex matter of her current feelings... and then: "A beast. When he's of a mind to be, he is a complete _beast._"

The man is silent for a very long time. "I'll fetch something to eat," he finally says, then waves off Belle's protest. "Now that we're not strangers, Margie, you can accept a gift from me, can't you?"

It's difficult to object to that. And she _is_ hungry.

As her new friend disappears into the tavern, Belle takes the opportunity to watch the movement around the horses. Regina is still caught up in discussion with the child with the brush, who, based on his clothes, is likely the stable boy. She watches as Regina pats the nose of the mare; it nudges her face, nickering, and the girl lights up as though it's her birthday.

It would seem this outing was a good idea after all - though she will not admit this to Regina, who would only take it as encouragement.

The man returns with a leg of something Belle cannot immediately recognize. But it smells delicious, and when she takes a bite in the most unladylike manner imaginable, she feels younger and more alive than she has in years. "This is very good," she says, mouth full.

"Slow-roasted partridge is this world's greatest magic," he replies. Belle nearly chokes upon hearing the forbidden word, but the man said it so innocently, so simply, and so confidentially, as though the existence of slow-roasted partridges would be a very great secret known only to the two of them, that she cannot be alarmed for long.

He keeps glancing up at her hair. Belle raises an eyebrow, and he has the good grace to look embarrassed at being caught ogling. "The color," he says by way of explanation. "It... rather suits you."

Ah. He _is_ flirting. It truly has been so long; no one dared to be the slightest bit playful with her after the engagement to Gaston, and one cannot flirt with books. And she used to be so _good_ at it, too.

Perhaps she still is. She glances up through her lashes in a demure, ever-so-slightly wicked fashion. "Why did you come to talk to me?" She asks this as coyly as she can, given that she has a leg of partridge in her hand and probably grease upon her cheek. She should have brought a handkerchief.

The man shrugs. He himself is not eating. "I had nothing better to do."

She smirks at him. "I think you were lonely," she proclaims. He gives her a strange look - she can't read his features, she cannot _focus_ on his features, but she knows it is strange nonetheless - and she adds: "_You_ haven't come with anyone else, have you?"

"Indeed not."

"Well, then. Any man who attends a festival all by himself _must_ be lonely."

"Perhaps I wanted to have an evening out, same as you." He twists his fingers together. "Perhaps I wanted to be an ordinary man for once."

Belle wrinkles her nose in amusement, continuing to devour her partridge. This makes the man scowl and demand: "Does the beast not feed you enough? If he doesn't, you ought to say something."

"Oh, no. I just don't eat anything so good very often. I'm a terrible cook, you see." Belle waves the leg. "If I knew how to roast a bird like this, I imagine I'd have fewer complaints about my failures as a chef."

"I doubt you receive as much credit as you deserve."

"No, believe me, I've tasted my own meals. They're horrendous. But no one has starved yet." She tosses the now bare bone aside and stands, wiping her fingers clean on the skirt of her dress; who is there to complain, after all, when she's the one to do the laundry? "There," she declares, and holds out her hand. The man tilts his head to the side and stares at it, seeming mystified. She prods: "Come and dance with me."

His mouth drops open. "Dance with you?"

"Yes." She nods towards the people around the bonfire, who spin and shout and sing in ways that would scandalize any ballroom in the realm. But Belle is already giddy with breaking the rules; why not one more? "Do you not know how?"

Her friend scoffs. "I was attending festivals years before you were born," he informs her. "I assure you I know them better than _you_."

"I don't doubt it," she says cheerfully. "I've never danced like this in my life. Come teach me?"

He still looks suspicious, but takes her hand in his own; the only detail she registers is that his touch is rather cooler than she expected. "You're... you're very persuasive, _Margie_." Again with the turning over of her false name, as though he's tasting it on his tongue. It's shockingly intimate, and she blushes, but wonders what it would be like to hear him say _Belle_ in that way.

Despite his reluctance, it is he, not she, who leads them to the bonfire. It is he, not she, who places his hands about her waist before she places hers upon his shoulders. And it is he who guides her through the dance, teasing generously when she missteps, twisting her out of the way of those who are far more sure-footed, and - more than once - glaring at the other men whose eyes glide over her appreciatively as her blonde hair flies behind her with every twirl.

"You garner a great deal of attention," her friend says, a note of petulance in the words.

"Yes. I'm pretty." There is such a fine line between boasting and false modesty, but Belle knows what she is, and she's been accustomed to men gawking at her since she wore her first corset. "So they look at me."

"And you enjoy it."

She shrugs, which throws off her rhythm for just a moment. "I don't _not_ enjoy it," she says. "But I don't like when they stare without speaking to me, as though I'm- as though being pretty just makes me into a _bauble_." She remembers the drunken sheriff, and adds: "Or into other things."

Suddenly she is held just a little bit closer, a little bit tighter. "Anyone who thinks you a bauble is a fool."

It's impossible not to laugh at such a cloying compliment. "Flatterer," she teases, though she doesn't mind in the slightest.

"Run away."

Belle blinks. "Wh- what?"

She is spun, twice, her impractical shoes digging into the straw-strewn earth, until the leaping flames of the bonfire warm her face and her back is pressed to the man's front. "Run away," he repeats, murming directly into her ear, breath stirring her hair. His arms tighten around her stomach; there is something edged and cold in his words. "You're not happy with this life, are you? You're miserable-"

"I never said that!"

"-and isolated-"

"I didn't say that either!"

"-and you've been waiting for your chance, haven't you? It's what you dream about at night. Leaving. Seeing the world, having a thousand adventures, and then finding your dim-witted prince and settling down to a life of riches and power. Every _minute_ you've been waiting, _hoping, _so do it. Run away. Tonight. Never think on the beast again."

Belle stops dancing. She reaches down, takes her new friend firmly by the wrists, and pulls his arms away from her waist; he doesn't resist as she turns to him. He is still, _so_ still, and utterly unreadable.

"Is it my face?" Belle demands.

"...excuse me?"

"Is it my face?" she repeats, stepping forward, away from the other dancers. He steps backwards automatically. "My voice? Something in the way I carry myself? What is it about me that makes everyone believe I'll break my promises at the first opportunity?"

"That isn't-"

"I keep my word!" She is so angry that she cannot see straight, until she realizes that the blurriness of her vision is from tears, which only makes her angrier. "I said I would look after my- my niece, and that I would keep house for my brother! I'm an honorable person, I _am_, and it doesn't feel good, you know, to always be thought untrustworthy! Especially when I haven't _done_ anything to warrant it! Not to you, nor- nor anyone else!"

And she had been having _such_ a good time.

Her friend - or rather, the man she'd _believed_ was her friend - has nothing to say for a solid minute. Belle wipes her eyes with her sleeve - how she wishes she'd brought a handkerchief! - and prepares to walk away, but then the man says, half-strangled: "You're right."

"I... pardon?"

"You're right." He swallows visibly, his focus somewhere around her knees. "You've never given me reason to believe- that is, you've done nothing to warrant my suspicions. Or my behavior. I've been... unfair, and I'm- I'm sorry. I truly am."

For a moment, Belle considers holding onto her indignation and storming off in a huff. But his remorse seems genuine - and, if she's honest with herself, she _did_ give him reason to believe she would wish to run away from 'the beast'. It was not such an unreasonable conclusion to reach.

Anyway, it isn't really _him_ she's upset with. It isn't fair to take her frustrations out on someone else. "Apology accepted," she says.

If the man was surprised before, he is now absolutely flabbergasted. "It is?"

"It is." He seems so stunned that Belle can't help but smile, though a bit sadly. Some people don't know what to do with just the smallest touches of courtesy. It reminds her of Regina. "So," she says, stepping back towards the fiddlers, "shall we keep dancing?"

He doesn't hold her quite so close this time, and she must lead them, but thankfully she has memorized at least the simplest of the steps. Her friend seems entirely too shaken to do more than follow her direction. "You are too kind," he says finally.

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment." One of his hands slowly drifts upwards, touches the end of a loose curl. "You grant your forgiveness much too freely. You- you will come to regret that, in the end."

"I don't believe I shall. Being suspicious all the time would be exhausting; I would much rather think the best of people."

"Even the beast?"

She nods. "Even him. Besides, as I said, he's only a beast when he's of a mind to be. He can just as easily decide to be... well, _more_." She pulls back a bit, so to more easily look her friend in the eye. She cannot tell their color. "So, you see? There's no call for concern. I'm not as miserable as you imagine."

"As I said, too kind."

"Besides, there's R- my niece to think of." He raises an eyebrow, and she elaborates: "She... she needs me, in her own way. They both do. I worry, sometimes, about what would happen if I weren't there; they both carry so much darkness. _Someone_ needs to keep an eye on them."

"You intend to create good where there is none?"

"I don't need to. There's more than enough good there, as long as someone reminds them to _look_." She beams at him. "I have a great talent for that, you know: finding good in people."

"Is that so." He spins her so close to the fire that her skirts nearly catch on the coals. "And is there good in me?"

"Of course there is." She twists under his arm playfully. "You bought me a partridge leg!"

If he intends elaborate on this discussion, or even just continue to dance, Belle never finds out - for in that moment she is barreled into from the side and knocked from her partner's grip. The arms around her waist are now lower, skinnier, and clinging twice as tightly.

"I- I couldn't see you," says the face pressed against Belle's stomach, voice muffled. "And I- I thought you- you might be frightened without me. _I_ wasn't frightened though."

Guilt washes over Belle. So much for keeping promises! "Oh, I'm certain you weren't," she says, petting the top of Regina's head. She notices a small figure - the stable boy - hovering by the edge of the dancers, awkwardly shifting his weight, but not leaving, either. "Thank you for coming to make certain I was all right. I didn't mean to move so far away."

The girl is trembling. "I wasn't frightened."

"No. Of course not." Belle gives Regina a moment to surreptitiously wipe her nose on Belle's dress - it is now past redemption - before saying to her friend in a clear, pointed tone that Regina cannot miss: "This is my _niece_, Verna."

"Verna. What a lovely name," he says smoothly. "Well met... _Verna_."

With a final hidden sniffle, Regina relinquishes Belle's waist to turn and face the man. "Thank you," she says reluctantly. "It's a pleasure to..." She trails off, eyebrows furrowing together as she stares at the man. She squints. She blinks several times.

Then she gasps and backs straight into Belle, who struggles to maintain her balance against the second hit in as many minutes. "Oh," she breathes. "Oh, I-"

"Have you been enjoying the festival, _Verna_?"

Regina glances from the man to Belle. "I... I h-have..."

"Forgive me for saying, _Verna_, but you seem a trifle young to be out so late."

At this, Belle looks up at the clock affixed above the tavern; the hands read seven minutes past midnight. "Much too late," she sighs. "Here I made you promise, and _I_ lost track of the time."

"We'll go home," says Regina, grabbing for Belle's hand and all but dragging her in the direction of the wooden bridge. "We'll go home _right now._"

Belle allows the girl to pull her along, because otherwise her arm is likely to be yanked from its socket. "I doubt we'll meet again," she says to her new friend, regretfully. "But thank you for the dance, and the meal. I had a lovely time."

"As did I," replies the man. He gives her the most incomprehensible look, then says, a tinge of desperation to his voice: "Please, I know it will be difficult, but _try_ to remember what I... that- that you've not... you aren't..."

But Regina is pulling too hard, and the man is not speaking quickly or clearly enough, and Belle has only time for one more wave before she can no longer distinguish him from the crowd.

The stable boy shouts his goodbyes as they pass; Belle nods to him, but Regina pays him no heed. Belle notes how his shoulders slump as he turns back towards the horses.

Regina doesn't speak as they make their way back up the mountainside - the return trip is even easier than their descent, and heavens only knows what price the girl will pay for that magic - and they are halfway across the castle grounds before Belle thinks to ask: "Did you have a good time?"

"Huh?"

"Did you have a good time, Regina. That stable boy: was he nice?"

"I- oh. Yes. Daniel. He... he was- I liked the horses. Belle? About the man you were talking to..."

Belle frowns. "What? The man... oh!" Yes, she did spend the evening talking to someone, didn't she? She tries to recall the details, but very little comes to mind. "He was... clever, I believe. And slow-roasted partridge is this world's greatest magic."

"What? _Partridge?"_

"Yes. Why?"

Regina shakes her head, and starts to bite at the edge of her knuckle as they approach the front doors. "I- I just-" She takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Nothing. Goodnight, Belle. And... thank you."

Belle goes to bed with no distinct thoughts, but warm with a general sensation of well-being. There is, after all, something to be said for breaking the rules once in awhile.

* * *

The first thing Belle does in the morning is check the looking glass. Her hair, thank goodness, has returned to its normal shade of brown; otherwise she would have had to dye it with whatever she could find in the kitchens, an endeavor that might well have ended with her begging the magicians in residence for a wig.

Regina doesn't take a bite of her breakfast, only pushing her toast around the plate listlessly. Normally this would not concern Belle overmuch, but the girl's eyes are swollen and red, with dark circles beneath. She clearly hasn't slept a wink. "Regina? Are you ill?"

Regina shakes her head, but she doesn't correct Belle with _Lady Regina_, which worries Belle more than anything else. "Why don't you return to bed," she suggests. "If Rumpelstiltskin comes back, I'll make your excuses-"

"Excuses for what?"

Belle and Regina both look up; the Dark One is sitting at the head of the table, casually sprawled in his chair as though he has been there since they came in. He drums his long fingers against the oak and glances at the empty space before him with a raised eyebrow. "None for me?" he says archly.

Belle shakes herself. "Sorry," she murmurs, reaching for her tray. "I didn't realize you were back, I'll fetch some now."

He dismisses her words with a wave. "No need, dearie, I'm not hungry. Nor is my pupil, it would seem; I _do_ wonder why that is."

Regina's face pales to a milky-white. She glances up at Belle, screws her eyes shut, takes a huge breath, and blurts out: "It was all my fault. Don't be angry with Belle, she told me not to, but I didn't listen-"

"Oh, I have no doubt of _that_, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin plucks a cup from the tea tray - the one with the chip, oddly enough - and passes it to Belle to be filled. "_I_ can barely convince you to gather potion ingredients when ordered; it's hardly a shock that our little maid couldn't procure your obedience, either."

Regina's eyes open. "P-potion ingredients?"

"Yes. Potion ingredients. Which you were supposed to have ready when I returned?" He adds a wedge of lemon to his tea and stirs it idly, spoon clinking against porcelain. "Why, there wasn't anything else to confess, was there?"

Belle's breath catches; Regina only stares. "N-no," she falters. "I... I guess not?"

"Excellent! Now eat that toast of yours before it grows cold." His eyes dart up to Belle's - who is open-mouthed with confusion - and then quickly back down to his cup. "And thank Belle for it," he tells Regina. "It isn't burnt today."

"Oh. I... thank you, Belle."

"You're- you're welcome."

"Oh, and, uh..." Rumpelstiltskin scrapes the teaspoon against the saucer a few times, then waves his hand; a wicker basket, shallow and as long as Belle's arm, appears on the table. "That is for you."

Belle cannot make hide nor hair of the gift, nor of the Dark One this morning, for that matter. "For me?"

"That's what I said, dearie." He coughs, then says severely: "I don't expect to run out of straw for a _moment_. Ever. Day or night."

Belle blinks, then looks back at the basket, suddenly understanding. "I... you expect me to get you straw? From... from town?"

"Whenever I have need of it. Promptly. Without complaint. Understood?"

"And you... trust me to come back?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

Yes. Yes, it is, it is _unfathomable_, but Belle is not about to question her good luck. "Thank you," she says again, heartfelt, meaning it this time.

He shrugs, hair in his eyes as he takes another sip of tea. He mutters: "No matter."

Regina has been watching this exchange with an open mouth, glancing back and forth between the adults. "Does this mean I can go, too?"

"I-"

"Because," she announces, and there is the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks that Belle suspects bodes very badly for them all, "I _really_ want to take horseback riding lessons."

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein there are many miscommunications and Regina is profoundly unpleasant.  
_

* * *

_**A/N**: You may have noticed I've given up bi-weekly updates in favor of weekly updates, and that the chapters have started splitting in half. This is because Belle, Rumpelstiltskin, and Regina are all EXTREMELY wordy. Writing and editing the talkative little snipes has proven a little more time consuming than I expected (especially with Loki and Jane Foster whispering in my other ear, damn them). So, yes, updates have slowed, but they will soldier forth nonetheless._**  
**


	8. Chapter Five

_**A/N**: I'm sorry this one's a few hours late, but Tom Hiddleston said Loki would read Plato and I kind of blacked out for a bit._

* * *

Regina wants to dance.

To this end, she insists - _insists!_ - that the ballroom be scrubbed to within an inch of its life. "It's filthy," she had explained to Belle, "and the dust is spreading to the rest of the castle." She gave several false sneezes immediately afterwards, going so far as to wipe away the imaginary tears watering from her eyes.

This has naturally made Belle wonder what her charge is up to. She is very much _not_ inclined to clean the ballroom, particularly after the disastrous early attempts during her first month in the castle; and besides, there's no real need, given that Rumpelstiltskin is as likely to prance about in her silver shoes as he is to throw a gala. She once asked why he even _had_ a ballroom; he'd replied that it came with the castle, and left it at that. Belle rarely asks for elaboration to his answers when none are provided. Not much good ever comes of it.

But Regina wears her down, having put together a very convincing argument that Belle is _supposed_ to be teaching her etiquette, and this is _part_ of etiquette, and what happens if Rumpelstiltskin takes her to barter deals at a fête and she cannot dance? What will become of her then? She'll be a laughingstock in the eyes of the entire realm! Belle doesn't want _that_ to happen, does she?

Oh, yes. Belle is suspicious.

That being said, Regina does have a point; in six months they've not begun any work on social graces at all, and Rumpelstiltskin _had_ requested it. So Belle, in spite of her misgivings, gives in - on the condition that Regina put in just as much to the cleaning of the ballroom as she herself does.

This causes Regina to grouse and pout and moan, which spares Belle from requesting Rumpelstiltskin check the girl for possession. But she submits to the manual labor nonetheless... though not without near-endless complaint.

"My back hurts," Regina says the first day, on her hands and knees with a scrub brush.

"So does mine," Belle replies pitilessly. "If you'd rather not work, I've more than enough to do elsewhere in the castle. That mushroom in the cellar is taller than you now."

"All right, all right."

The second day: "This soap doesn't work."

"Yes, it does."

The third day: "I've invented an enchantment that will blow away all the cobwebs."

"You know the rules about cleaning spells."

The fourth day: "The bristles on my brush are broken."

"Fetch a new one."

The fifth day: "Sorceresses do not carry ladders."

"Then sorceresses do not learn to dance."

The sixth day: "This place is under a curse. The most evil curse in the history of the world. _Ever._"

"Perhaps. Pass the featherduster."

There are times Belle wants nothing more than to lock herself in the library for some peace from Regina's nagging; she sometimes fantasizes about what it would have been like if the Dark One had only needed a maid, instead of a maid _and_ a governess. Quieter, certainly.

But then the day comes when the ballroom is at last finished, the columns gleaming brighter than the gold that falls from Rumpelstiltskin's spinning wheel, the crystal chandelier sparkling in the midday sun that radiates through the windowpanes, the marble spotless beneath their slippered feet, and the excitement that practically vibrates from Regina makes it impossible for Belle not to smile.

"Show me how," the girl begs, grabbing Belle's hands and all but dragging her to the center of the room. "Show me _everything_."

Suspicious indeed. "Is there a reason this is so important to you, Regina?"

"_Lady_ Regina. And no. I just want to learn to dance, so teach me."

Belle knows perfectly well that her charge is lying once again, but there is no point in forcing the issue. It would only end in frustration for everyone. "All right, _Lady_ Regina. Go and change your clothes into something formal. A dress with a bell skirt will-"

There is a whirl of smoke, and in the blink of an eye Regina stands clad in a ball gown of deep violet, complete with shoulder sleeves and black lace trim. Her hair is still a wreck. "_There_." At the expression on Belle's face she asks: "What? Don't you like it?"

"It's beautiful," Belle says honestly. The cut and color are severe, but suit Regina well; it's just a shame her natural complexion doesn't favor the softer shades of childhood. Then again, Belle can't help but note how the tight lacing around the girl's waist and chest indicates _childhood_ is steadily fading. At least she hasn't chosen to wear red. "But you had no cause to cast that spell."

"I was practicing."

"You were being lazy. Not _everything_ needs to be done with magic."

"But Rumpelstiltskin-"

"-would be even firmer with you about this than I, and you well know it. Next time you will walk to your chambers to fetch your clothes like anyone else."

Regina grumbles something that could potentially be considered an acquiescence. When she smoothes down her skirts, Belle notices the design is somewhat familiar; it only takes a moment more to see the cut is the same as her own golden gown.

"All right," says Belle. "Come here. Step opposite me... yes, like that... now raise your hands, and follow my count..."

After an hour of instruction - and steadily mounting frustration - Regina complains: "This is much harder than I thought it would be."

"It takes practice. Some people can dance for years and still feel a bit awkward."

"_I _won't," says Regina stubbornly. "I'm going to get it right, and it won't take me _years_, either. I just didn't know it would be like this, is all."

Belle frowns as she pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and uses it to wipe Regina's flushed face. The poor girl is dripping from exertion; even staid, stuffy ballroom dancing is hard work. They're past time for a break. "What did you think it would be like?"

"Different. This is just a lot of- of hand-touching, and stepping around." Regina winces away from Belle's swipes, but Belle follows anyway, catching a drop of sweat before it falls from the girl's nose. "I thought it would be... faster."

Ah. Now Belle understands. "Like at the festival, you mean?"

"Yes." Regina blushes; Belle rather suspects that that stable boy features prominently in whatever the girl is picturing. "I want to learn _that_. This kind of dancing is boring."

"I'm afraid I'm not the one to teach you." Belle tucks the handkerchief away and straightens. "This is what I know - and if you're worried about how you'll look at royal affairs, you'll need to know it, too."

Regina looks positively revolted. "They dance like _this_ in palaces and courts?"

"They do. Only peasants dance the way you saw."

"I think I'd rather be a peasant. They have more fun."

"A peasant might disagree with you."

"I don't see why. _You_ wanted to go down to town. _You're_ having fun."

"That's- that's not exactly how it works." Belle _has_ been making regular trips to the village since Rumpelstiltskin gave his permission, which has been good for little more than exercise and a change of scenery. The townspeople nod to her in the street, clearly believing she's a relative of some straw-poor forest hermit; Belle determined fairly quickly that, somehow, none of them have the slightest idea they live in the shadow of the Dark One. She'd asked Rumpelstiltskin about this, which had gotten her nothing more than a laugh and a caustic comment about how _fools only see what they expect_.

It's not as though she doesn't enjoy these small breaks from the monotony of the castle, but a poor provincial town is hardly her idea of paradise. She only volunteered to begin with in the hopes of finding _Regina_ a way to see outside the walls. That, however, has yet to come to pass.

Still, the Infinite Forest was not grown in a day, and a stubborn sorcerer's will is not to be weakened in the space of a few months. Belle hasn't given up. "Be patient," she tells Regina. "You'll return to the village eventually, I'm sure of it."

Another heaving sigh. "Be patient, be patient," the girl repeats in that mocking tone that always puts Belle's teeth on edge. "You're only saying that to keep me quiet. You're just _pretending_ to care whether I want to go."

Belle takes a deep breath and reminds herself that Regina is only ten. "I think we're finished with dancing for today," she says coolly.

Regina's mouth drops open. "But you told me you'd teach me!"

"And I will. Later. Consider it a lesson in forbearance."

Regina storms off to her chambers. Belle takes out her frustrations for the rest of the afternoon by beating back mouse nests from the grain store rooms.

* * *

As the days pass, Belle is somewhat amazed to find that as her charge becomes progressively more frustrating, her employer becomes progressively _less_ so. There are times, in fact, that he is almost... pleasant. Belle had only rarely found him to be intolerable - except when he is in one of his blacker moods - but if she enjoyed his company, it was only because his company _happened_ to be enjoyable that day. In two seasons at the Dark Castle she had never known him to make an effort.

Now he does. And perhaps Belle should be more skeptical of this, as she always is when Regina's behavior become randomly solicitous, but she finds she cannot be. Regina is an inveterate, remorseless little liar, a habit which Belle has yet to break; Rumpelstiltskin is not. And though he is most assuredly a master manipulator, Belle long ago discovered he rarely aims that skill at herself - and, when he tries, he is spectacularly unsuccessful. So she takes his newfound consideration at face value, filing away the knowledge that, when he is being awful, a hearty slap gets his attention.

The most notable instance of this occurs on the day Rumpelstiltskin wanders into the third dungeon, where Belle is forwarding her assault against the clinging green slime that coats the walls. "It's not likely to come off with just a scour, dearie," he says flatly, leaning against the doorframe. "That stuff? Hasn't a care in the world for vinegar."

Belle, on her knees, her back aching and sore from hours of work, looks up at the Dark One with mild reproach. "That would have been useful to know before I began," she says. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't _you_ ask?"

"If I asked how to approach _every_ strange thing I came across in this castle, I'd have no time left for cleaning." She tosses the brush into her bucket. "Do you have a suggestion?"

Rumpelstiltskin smirks knowingly, and, with a quick turn of the wrist, conjures a fireball in his palm. "Try this," he advises. He brings his hand close to the stones; the goo shivers, then slides backwards towards the corners of the walls, pulling away from the flame as quickly as a shadow retreats from sunlight.

Belle is too fascinated by this display to be upset at the time wasted scrubbing. "That's amazing," she says, eyes wide. "Is it the heat, or the light?"

"I don't know; I've never asked it," he replies, preening as Belle giggles. "Either way, a candle will do just as well. That should go a bit quicker for you than vinegar and water, I should imagine."

"Why didn't you _use_ a candle, then?"

"I beg your pardon?"

She nods pointedly at the flame that still flickers in his hand. "Magic," she says. "You and Regina are always using magic when there's no cause to do so. I thought it all came with a price?"

Rumpelstiltskin glances down at the fireball with surprise, as though he's forgotten it's there, and closes his fingers with a snap. "The rules are different for the Dark One," he says, his voice a little graver than Belle is accustomed to. "I paid my price for tricks like that long ago." He frowns. "The girl hasn't, though, and it needs to come to a stop."

"Then you'd best set a better example." He cocks his head at her in confusion, and she elaborates in the tones of someone explaining something to a small child: "She's imitating _you_. She sees you casting small spells and then does the same."

"Ah." He looks uncomfortable. "Well. I'll speak to her about it."

Belle gets to her feet, arching her smarting back until it pops. "I don't see why you both insist on using magic at every turn anyway," she says - and is more than a little disgruntled to note the petulance in her own voice. She hopes Rumpelstiltskin doesn't hear it it.

He does. And the smirk is back at once. "Jealous, are we?"

"_No_," Belle says immediately. "But... but it _can_ be trying, when you're only one doing things with your own hands." She looks at her palms a little sadly; months of work have turned them red and calloused, a far cry from the delicate peach skin she'd once possessed.

Rumpelstiltskin notices the same; his lips twitch. "I won't be teaching you any spells, dearie," he warns her, "but I imagine I could scare up a bit of hand cream."

Objections to magic - and magical such a gift is likely to be - do not stop Belle from beaming gratefully at her employer. "That would be wonderful," she says. "Thank you."

He shrugs awkwardly, not meeting her eyes. He's been doing that rather a lot as of late. "No matter," he says. "The state of the dungeons and your- ah, your skin isn't what I came to discuss, anyway." He shifts his weight and drums his fingertips against one another. "I wished to thank you."

Belle smiles at him. "You're welcome."

He blinks, hands pausing mid-flutter. "I'm- but I haven't told you what I'm thanking you for yet."

"You'll be welcome regardless."

"...oh."

The silence hangs for a few moments before she finally takes pity on his confusion. "So, how did I earn your gratitude?"

"Ah. Well." He's so completely thrown off by her teasing that Belle has to chew on her lower lip to hold her laughter at bay. That would only bewilder him further, after all. "It's about the girl. You've done an excellent job with her education. She's developing quite a bit faster than I anticipated, so... I expect it's due to you. And I- I wanted you to know. That I appreciate it, that is."

Belle can't help but feel a surge of pride at this. She's certainly done her best, though Regina's not been listening to her much as of late. "You didn't _anticipate_ her development?" she asks playfully. "I thought you could see the future."

If anything, he appears even more uncomfortable. "As I said, dearie, the details can be elusive. From time to time."

"Hmm." Belle decides to leave the subject of his clairvoyance be for now, in that she's feeling entirely too self-satisfied to approach it delicately. "Well, I'm pleased to hear Regina is doing so well." She magnanimously adds: "I'm sure your tutelage is more to thank than mine."

"Perhaps, but I believe you're responsible for instilling her with _something_ resembling a degree of work ethic. Believe it or not, she's now deigning to look over her spells before trying to cast them. Sometimes my work room even remains functional for three hours straight."

"Well, that _would_ make sense." Rumpelstiltskin cocks his head to the side, and Belle elaborates: "Since she can read now, I imagine fewer things are going awry."

"What?"

"That's why so much of her magic was wrong, wasn't it?" Belle shrugs. "Regina's certainly not what I would call _proficient_, but she's managing those books you've given her now, and picking up more every day. She's worked very hard at it."

Rumpelstiltskin only stares blankly.

The silence stretches.

A terrible suspicion builds in Belle's mind. "You- you _did_ know she couldn't read... didn't you?" Her stomach sinks as he slowly shakes his head. "Oh, _no_. How could you not- oh, have you been hard on her this whole time?"

"I did ask if she was having difficulties," he says defensively. A flush has risen to his cheeks, made more golden than usual by the candlelight. "She told me she wasn't, so what else was I to-"

"She was _lying_, Rumpelstiltskin. She lies _constantly._ Can't you tell?"

The scowl on his face darkens along with the deepening blush. "Apparently not."

"Oh." Belle bites her lip. She'd had no intention of embarrassing him, she had only assumed... "I'm not surprised she fooled you," she offers hesitantly, trying to spare his pride. "She's _very_ good at it."

"Yes. That seems to be a family trait." And he turns on his heel and strides from the dungeon, leaving Belle alone with a slime-covered wall and a curiosity that burns brighter than the flames he'd held in his hand.

* * *

Whatever Rumpelstiltskin says to Regina afterwards, it proves effective at destroying the already straining goodwill between Belle and her charge. The next morning Regina will not even acknowledge her maid's presence, let alone speak to her, and nothing Belle tries can convince her to thaw. Rumpelstiltskin is in a sour mood as well, disappearing four days out of the next seven to inflict what are surely ruinous deals on the rest of the world, and remaining intractably silent when at home, spinning for hours on end and offering only monosyllabic answers to Belle's feeble attempts to initiate conversation. _He_, at least, is not openly hostile the way Regina has become, but he doesn't make for enjoyable company nevertheless.

After a week, Belle has had _more_ than enough of bratty children and brooding sorcerers. If everyone else is going to spend their time in sulks, then she has every right to do the same.

That evening she is comfortably settled in the library, reading about a quest to retrieve a stolen sword from a ferocious dragon, when her very own dragon-in-residence storms up the staircase. "It's _dinnertime_, dearie," Rumpelstiltskin says acidly, "and I cannot help but notice, what with my keen senses and all, that there is quite a _stunning_ lack of dinner present."

Belle turns a page without looking up. "Really," she replies, deadpan.

"I didn't bring you here to waste your time lounging about my towers, little maid. In fact, I believe that _serving meals_ was quite _specifically_ stipulated in our original agreement."

"There's bread and cheese in the kitchen."

"Which _you_ are meant to bring to the table. If that story of yours is so _inconsiderately_ keeping you from your work, then perhaps I ought relieve you of its distraction." He points at the book in her hands, which begins to puff with purple smoke-

-until Belle fixes him with a silent, gimlet, _evil_ glare.

The smoke vanishes instantly. "Bread and cheese in the kitchen, you said?"

"By the ovens." Rumpelstiltskin beats a hasty retreat, and Belle returns to the quest for the sword.

Not even the Dark One is permitted to come between Belle and her books.

But the triple impasse continues for three more days after Belle makes her stand - three days wherein Belle is quite content to fix herself cold sandwiches and work her way through Rumpelstiltskin's surprisingly extensive collection of romantic poetry - before the standoff thunders to a halt. More or less literally: Regina's footsteps certainly thunder past Belle's chambers before the sun has even risen, the stone walls seem to shake when she slams her door, and the pounding on _Belle's_ door moments later hurts her ears.

When she opens up, Rumpelstiltskin takes no obvious notice of her nightclothes or tangled bed hair. "I brought you here to manage that girl," he says without preamble. "No excuses. Your vacation is over."

Whatever this is, it is entirely too early for it. "I thought we'd established," Belle snaps, "that you are all completely capable of handling your own-"

He cuts her off with a sharp gesture towards Regina's room. "_No_, dearie. You will speak with her, or on my word as the Dark One, I will consider our deal void and lift the enchantments protecting your miserable little village. The ogres will have your townsfolk in their clutches before noontime."

Belle is not awake enough to tell whether he's bluffing or not. Technically, though, he _could_; she _has_ been shirking her responsibilities, however justified the shirking may be. "There's no need to threaten," she yawns, rubbing her eyes. "What's wrong with Regina?"

"I found her going through my cabinets."

"And?" Rumpelstiltskin doesn't continue, so Belle prods: "I don't know anything about your work room. Isn't this something for you to handle?"

"Not exactly." The Dark One is entirely fixated on a small spot on the wall next to Belle's head. "She was... searching for a remedy. And wasn't inclined to tell me why."

"All right..."

"So I insisted."

"I can't imagine that went well."

"No. It- ah, it didn't." The speck on the wall cannot be _that_ interesting, but Rumpelstiltskin stares at it as though it contains all the secrets of the universe. "There's many reasons you're in this castle, dearie, and one of them is that you're female. Therefore this is _your_ purview, not mine."

"I don't underst-" She stops abruptly as the nature of the situation dawns on her. "_Oh_. Oh, I see."

"Good, because I have no interest in explaining further."

"Are you certain? She's ten years old."

"More certain than I ever intended to be. And she's eleven."

"What? When did she turn eleven?"

"_Months_ ago." Rumpelstiltskin glances away from the wall to give her an odd look. "Did she not tell you?"

"No!"

"Well. It would appear I'm not the only one she's been keeping in the dark."

"Indeed." Eleven is still early - but then, Regina has been nothing if not precocious. "At least it explains why she's been so impossible lately."

"So it does. Now, if you would be so kind as to do your job and inform the girl she's not perishing from injury or wasting disease, I'll be getting back to my _own_ work."

And the Dark One disappears from the hallway in the blink of an eye.

"Coward," Belle mutters to herself.

She knocks on Regina's bedroom door, but only as a courtesy, and ignores the hoarse shout to go away; when she enters she is not surprised to see the girl face down in bed, nor to find the floor strewn with discarded, stained petticoats. Belle is struck by no small amount of guilt by the latter; had she not refused to do laundry for the last several days, she would have noticed at once what was happening. The child - less of a child, now - has obviously been bleeding for awhile.

As she sits at the edge of the mattress, she tries to recall what her own nanny had said to her at this critical moment. Her memory is of a rather harsh speech that ended with a brusque, extremely vague warning that she was not to be alone with men from then on. Other than that, Belle remembers little of those first few times beyond wringing pain and a great deal of tears. Belle may have a _feminine touch_, but this discussion is a mother's office, she knows all too well what it is like to be orphaned in these moments. She places a hand on her charge's shoulder. "Regina?"

The girl flinches away, burrowing further into her blankets. "_Lady_ Regina," she mutters, muffled.

Belle sighs. "_Lady_ Regina, then. How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"Do you know what's happening?"

"Yes," the girl lies. She rolls onto her side, facing away from Belle. "I don't need you, so unless you've brought a healing potion, leave me alone."

This is not going well. "It can't be fixed with a healing potion, Regina. You're not ill." She receives no response, so Belle tries a different tactic. "Why didn't you tell me when you had your birthday? I would have baked a cake."

"You don't know how to bake cakes."

"I would have _learned_ to bake a cake."

"It would have been horrible."

"Probably, but think of how funny to watch Rumpelstiltskin eat it?" There is a smothered, wet noise that sounds a bit like a giggle, and Belle smiles. "We'll do that when you turn twelve."

Regina curls into a tight ball, prickly as a porcupine. "He always came," she whispers. "When it was my birthday. They're just for him and me. So I didn't tell you."

"Ah." That makes some sense; they'd not known each other long at the time, after all. "I understand. Maybe next year, if you want, I could-"

"No. My birthday doesn't matter to you. You're not my mother."

That is nothing but the truth. It should not hurt as much as it does. "It matters," Belle manages. "But, if you don't want... it's all right, but, perhaps, in time, since you don't mind if Rumpelstiltskin-"

Regina curls up tighter still.

The meaning of it - the reason Regina will accept _him_ on her birthday and not _her_ - hits Belle like a slap in the face.

But that... that is neither here nor there to the current situation. "If I had realized how old you were," Belle forges on, trying to set aside her new suspicions, "then I would have warned you about all... _this_." She gestures vaguely to the soiled petticoats. "I'm sorry that you didn't know it was coming."

"I knew."

"You're lying."

"Am I?"

"Yes. You are. And you don't need to. I want to listen to what you have to say." This time, when Belle pats her shoulder, she doesn't flinch away. "Regina, if I'm never to know, _truly_ know, more than two people for the rest of my life... can't I at least know you?"

A long silence follows this, but Belle has lived with this girl for many months now, and she has learned when to wait. Finally Regina says: "I wasn't going to do anything to his laboratory. Well, I was, but..." She swallows. "I was just... he asked, and I didn't..."

"You didn't want to tell Rumpelstiltskin what was wrong," Belle finishes for her. When she nods, Belle continues gently: "Would you like me to explain it to you?"

The "yes please" is so small that Belle can barely hear it. But it's a start.

* * *

Some hours later, Belle comes to the great room to find Rumpelstiltskin at his wheel, already on his third basket of gold. "Is she sorted?" he asks, eyes not leaving the straw in his hands.

"I think so, yes."

"Good. Good thing." The wheel continues to turn. "I suppose she won't be down today."

"No. I'll take her her meals. She'll be all right, she's just... she's more embarrassed than anything else. It all came as a bit of a shock, you understand."

"I don't, actually, and I have no interest in trying." He takes one hand away from his spinning long enough to point at the table; a tiny whirl of smoke wisps along the edge, clearing to reveal a stoppered blue bottle no larger than a hen's egg. "Give her that with her afternoon tea," he says. "It will ease the pains for the rest of her time." When Belle stares at him, he glances up long enough to add - with great derision - "_Yes_, dearie, I _do_ know a few things about women."

"Oh." Belle shakes herself. "Yes, of- of course you do." She pockets the bottle. "Thank you, that's very kind."

He shrugs as he returns to his spinning. It is a movement very much like Regina's.

Belle takes the moment to study his features, to try and separate the angles of his face and the contours of his hands from the strange, reptilian attributes of the Dark One. She cannot see anything of Regina in him. Perhaps Regina is all her mother.

Well, there may not be physical similarities, but Belle bears no resemblance to Maurice, herself. Not all traits are as easy to spot as the color of one's eyes or the shape of one's nose. The girl is certainly powerful. And tempestuous. And lonely. And, underneath layers and layers of metaphorical scales and dragonhide, _good_.

In that, they are nearly the same person.

It is a full minute before Belle realizes Rumpelstiltskin is watching her with a curious expression. She blushes at having been seen staring and explains lamely: "I- I was wondering what... what you would like for lunch."

"Ah. I take it you're finally resuming your duties, then?"

"If everyone in this castle has decided to stop being ridiculous, then yes." His eyebrows climb higher, and Belle sighs at the silent sarcasm. "Myself included, I suppose. Will stew be all right?"

"Whatever you see fit to serve will be fine, my peevish little maid. If you rush something elaborate you're likely to poison us all."

If her feather duster were on hand, she would certainly whack him with it. As it stands, Belle settles for making a face at the Dark One before heading down to the kitchens. His laughter - deep, human - follows her through the halls.

She toys with the potion in her apron, and wonders if there's _any_ way to discover whether Rumpelstiltskin is Regina's father, or if Regina only believes it to be so.

Probably not.

There is a bottle of hand cream waiting for her next to the cheese.

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein the plot thickens._


	9. Chapter Six (A)

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Belle looks up from the square, flour-dusted chopping table. It's a muggy day, the sort of that only comes at the last burst of summer before it grudgingly yields to fall, and if the stones of the castle get any hotter she won't need to put this dough in the oven to bake it. "Tell you what?" she asks, brushing away sticky strands of hair with her wrist.

Regina's expression is pitiless, her eyes - which, Belle has come to note, _are_ nearly as dark as Rumpelstiltskin's - flashing with indignance. She crosses her arms, taps her foot, and remains silent.

It's an eerily similar version of Belle's own impatient actions when Regina is being difficult. Belle hasn't been on the _receiving_ end of such a look since her own nanny had left her some fifteen years past. It is as disconcerting as she remembers. "I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Regina," Belle says, and, yes, she even _sounds_ as though she's responding to her own nanny.

Regina is not mollified. "You've been keeping something from me," she declares.

That's true on multiple levels, and does nothing to make the situation clearer. "Regina, again, I don't _know_-"

"My _name_."

Belle blinks; baking dust settles onto her lashes. "Come again?"

"I _know_ what it means. I read it. It means _queen_." Regina raises her chin and, yes, in this moment, even with her too-short skirts - she just keeps growing, her head comes to Belle's shoulder now - and her endlessly untidy hair, she certainly looks regal. In a few years it will be terrifying. "I'm supposed to be the queen of something, aren't I."

Of all the things Belle had thought Regina might say, this isn't it. "Not that I'm aware of, no."

"Why would I be _named_ Queen if I'm not a queen?"

"Well, people... they... sometimes names are just names. They needn't signify anything."

Regina scoffs - _exactly_ like the sorcerer lurking above them in his tower. "That's ridiculous. You're named Belle, and you're beautiful." The statement is without compliment; she is simply reciting a fact. "And Belle _means_ beautiful. I read that too."

"Yes, but my name didn't _make_ me that way. I could just as easily have been born with- with crossed eyes, or webbed toes."

"Of course you wouldn't have. Names have power."

"Not _that_ kind of power." Belle pinches her nose, and regrets it immediately afterwards as inhales a puff of flour. "Regina-" she sneezes "-I think probably-" she sneezes again "-it's just a name."

"You're wrong." Regina pulls a chair from the hearthside and sits, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin on her palm, utterly indifferent to Belle's distress. "One day I will be a queen."

"Regina-" Sneeze.

"I bet no one has ever been a sorceress _and_ a queen before. I'll be the first."

"R-" Sneeze. "Regina, the towel-"

"In _my_ palace we'll do the _fun_ kind of dancing."

Sneeze, sneeze, sneeze. "Reg-"

"Everyone will love my parties. And me. Hey!" Regina looks up as Belle, eyes watering and half-choked, stumbles into her while grabbing for the dish rag draped over the next chair. "You got flour on me!"

Belle blows her nose with an indelicate honk. "Then maybe," she gasps when she can again speak, "you should have handed me the towel when I asked for it."

"Queens do not hand towels to maids," says Regina grandly.

There is nothing to do in response to that statement, obviously, but for Belle to throw a handful of flour in the girl's face.

Regina closes her eyes instinctively, gasps in shock, and immediately begins to cough. She gropes for the dish rag... which Belle holds just out of reach. Vaguely she considers that this is not a very mature response - she is fifteen years Regina's senior, after all - but she can't help it. "Maids," she says sweetly, "would _never_ insult queens by offering them used towels."

Regina retaliates with a bowl of raspberries smashed into Belle's skirts.

When Rumpelstiltskin comes down to the kitchens some half-hour later - well after lunch was due to be served - it is to discover his maid and his apprentice lying on the cobbled floor, covered in dough and fruit and eggs and an entire bottle of honey wine, giggling maniacally. After a moment of stunned observation, he says: "This... is not what I expected."

Regina manages to stop laughing, and even looks abashed.

Belle throws an egg at him.

The end result is the loss of another sack of flour, two buckets of water upended over the miscreants, and the discovery that tomato stains are nearly impossible to get off of dragon hide. It is worth it.

* * *

Weeks pass, and the days are shortening. Mornings hold a crispness now that makes Belle pull her cloak a little tighter around her body as leaves the castle. There is no autumn up here in the mountains, it would seem; a few weeks ago the heat was unbearable, and now the pine needles shimmer with frost. Winter will hit hard and fast.

Still, cool or not, orders must be obeyed. Belle steps out the hidden side gate - it opens obligingly for her - and starts down the path to the village. Rumpelstiltskin had announced the night before that he required more straw, and so fetch straw Belle will.

He's a far worse liar than Regina, which is, Belle suspects, why he prefers to use the _truth_ to get what he wants; he knows how to turn facts to strings which make his deceptions dance. But she knows perfectly well - though she was the one who suggested fetching supplies in the first place - that there are rooms upon rooms of spinning materials stashed in the Dark Castle. He has no real reason to send her to the village. There's nothing he needs.

Yet he asks her to go anyway. Frequently. She thinks it's because he likes watching her come back.

This works out well for her, because _she_ likes the way his gold-green-gray not-as-ugly-as-he-thinks face lights up every time she returns, no matter how deliberately gruff and sarcastic his response is afterwards. That little glimpse of his surprise is the best part of her trips to town... though she doesn't tell him so. Belle is many things, but she is not a fool. To confess something like that - _I like the way you're always so glad to see me_ - would send him into his tower for days. She lives with a beaten dog who longs to be pet but snaps at any hand that reaches out.

She wonders who it was that struck him.

Still, she is patient, and she is brave, and she will teach him that not all hands are cruel. More importantly, _she_ will be the one to teach him, because the only other option is Regina, who doesn't understand. _Belle_ can see how he beams with pride when Regina does something particularly clever or competent; likewise, Belle watches as he catches himself and suppresses his approval with cold, hard words. Belle is a grown woman - she can handle his blustering - but it is not to be aimed at Regina.

She _will_ teach him. He will learn he need not coat his kindness in acid. And once he does, he will accept Regina's love as he will accept Belle's... esteem.

She's sure of it.

The village square is already starting to bustle, even though the sun has only just risen. The baker carries his tray of goods from door to opening door, steam rising from the fresh loaves. A woman cursed - at least from Belle's perspective - with a half-dozen small children is haggling for eggs from the stone-faced farmer who brings his wagon to market each day; Belle suspects the mother is younger than herself, though she looks middle-aged with care and worry. A shepherd has lost control of his flock; the rogue sheep harass a laundress washing clothes in the fountain. The barber is sweeping his front step clean of dust and hair. The local and pitifully understocked library has thrown open its doors to sit empty for the singularly uncurious townsfolk.

Same as always.

It's charming in its own way, Belle supposes, but the novelty has long since worn off. She is always pleased to return to the Dark Castle when she is finished her tasks. There, the work is hard, the surroundings are bizarre, and the company is erratic, but at least it is always _interesting_. Besides, she still has several thousand books left to read.

One thing that has changed in the town, and for the better, is the appreciative stares she received for the first several of her visits. More than one man approached for the purpose of _getting to know her_ - which featured little more than practiced compliments and blatant leering. None of them were remotely interested in conversation, a fact made all too clear by how they never seemed to hear anything she had to say. So _Margie_ took to answering common questions - _Fine weather we're having, isn't it?_ - with uncommon answers - _You know the kettle will boil when the crows fly east_ - and has thus come to be known as the funny beauty who buys all the straw.

Belle enjoys this reputation. It keeps the dullards at a distance and limits talk to the clever and the curious. The clever and the curious are the only sorts to know, in her opinion.

First things are first: errands. Straw is easy enough to purchase from the stable master, particularly given that he's one of the few in town who actively objects to her presence, and worries that the madness - as he sees her cultivated eccentricity - will spook his precious horses. He is always all too happy to give her a good deal if she will only vacate the stables as soon as possible.

It is with a full basket, passing around the back of the stalls, that Belle is stopped by a familiar sandy-brown head that peeks from the hayloft. "Well met, Miss Margie," he says, hanging over the ladder, hair sticking straight up - or down, rather.

Belle smiles. This boy is the only one who calls her _Miss_. "Well met, Daniel," she replies, tilting her face back to speak to him. "How are you this morning?"

"Tired," the boy says honestly. "The horses were restless last night with the frost."

"Oh, dear."

"It's all right. I took care of them. How are you?"

"A bit tired also, I suppose. It was a long walk into town."

"Ah." He pauses, then - as though he has _just_ thought of this, as he had _just_ thought of it the last ten times they've met - casually inquires: "How is Verna?"

"She's well. Very- very busy."

"Oh." Blood has reddened his cheeks, both from blushing and from hanging upside-down. "That's... good."

Belle hasn't had the heart to tell Regina how often the stable boy asks about her. What good would it do, after all, if there is no chance the friendship would be allowed to develop? A crush between a sorceress and a stable boy, even only a childish one, cannot come to a happy end. Better to let her think she's been forgotten. Then she will forget as well.

Belle is doing the right thing, she's sure of that, but it does nothing to lessen the guilt she feels at Daniel's forlorn sigh. "Do you need any help carrying your straw home?" he asks.

"I don't," she answers, as she does every time they meet. "But thank you anyway."

When she leaves the stable, she tells herself that perhaps _something_ will change in time. It doesn't seem likely... but she doesn't know for certain. _Nothing_ can be known for certain. No one can see the future.

Though, she considers as she re-enters the square, that's not _entirely_ true; for instance, she knows for certain that winter is not far off. This is very likely her last trip into town. It is with this thought that she makes her way to the tavern - which opens at daybreak, along with every other business in the village - to have a breakfast of hardboiled eggs, and listen to the chatter of local conversation before she will be limited to only two voices until the season turns back to spring.

Not many others are in the alehouse at this hour - the fire has yet to be built, the decorative antlers hang in shadows - but there are a few, and they are gossipy. The butcher worries his wife will discover his infidelity with the town tart - which, Belle reflects, she almost certainly _will_, if he continues to stare down the woman's dress whenever she comes to his stall. There is general agreement that the pig boy needs to be horsewhipped for failing to manage his livestock, as the hogs have caused mass destruction in five gardens thus far. Three blonde sisters, generally agreed to be the most desirable girls in town - though Belle has overheard that she herself would compete for that title, were she not so odd - are causing a stir by fighting for the attentions of a local braggart, and in the process breaking the hearts of their legions of suitors.

Belle listens to all of this with a fonder smile than she would have had she not known she'd not see any of them for the next several months, and eats her eggs with gusto. No one invites her to speak; who knows what Crazy Little Margie might say, after all. She's touched in the head.

All the better to eavesdrop.

The gossip turns to rumors floating in beyond the borders of the tiny hamlet. _This_ interests Belle far more than romantic escapades, and she listens intently for word of the ogre war. If Avonlea - small though it is - had been flattened, the news would spread. She has heard nothing, and so her home is probably safe.

But she is silly to worry. Of course Avonlea is safe. Rumpelstiltskin doesn't break his deals.

No, no talk of ogres, nor of war. Rather, the report is of a bit of royal excitement in distant kingdoms: a public reward has been offered to any person who can provide the whereabouts of a long-lost princess. The bounty is one hundred gold coins.

_That_ information draws a small crowd.

"Stolen as a baby, they said," announces the local fishmonger - he sails up and down the river, and is always the best source of news from outside realms. "Oughta be a girl now - if she's not dead in a well somewhere, 'course."

"And no one thought to look afore now?" asks the butcher.

The barmaid snorts as she wipes a dented tin mug. "Can't imagine the newborn princess in the next realm over had anything to do with the sudden rush," she says disparagingly. "What's the line of succession these days?"

"What difference does it make?" The fishmonger shrugs. "All it _means_ is they've not seen her since the cradle. No notion what she looks like. So just find some brat with the right colors, take her to the castle, and get your gold; how are they to know the difference?"

"Until your fake spills the beans," points out the butcher. "Then you'll be hanged. If you're lucky."

"So take the reward and leave the kingdom in the same hour. Nothing to it."

"They why hasn't anyone else tried it yet?"

"Because no one else is as clever as me. Also, you're supposed to bring some kind of proof you've slain the demon who snatched her."

Belle's hand stills, fork halfway to her mouth.

"Oh, proof of having slain a _demon_. Is _that_ all."

"'Tis no great difficulty. Find some trinket, have the girl say it belonged to the monster. Easy as anything."

The barmaid shakes her head, black curls flying. "A foolproof plan," she says. "No flaws at _all_. Do send us a letter by way of the hangman, won't you?"

"You have no faith, Minnie," says the fishmonger with an extravagant pout.

"I have faith in many a thing. But in you? Never."

"How old is this lost princess?" says Belle suddenly. The tavern-goers look up with surprise and no small amount of interest at Crazy Little Margie, as though expecting her to start speaking in tongues.

The butcher, in particular, smirks indulgently - with a not too subtle glance at her bodice. "Going to go royal-hunting, little Margie? I think I might have seen the lost princess hiding in my barn, if you'd like to come and take a look."

The barmaid smacks the butcher on the back of the head; Belle smiles and curls her fingers around the edge of her crockery plate, ready to smash it into the man's face if she must. One swing would break his nose. She's grown strong from scrubbing. "Just curious," she says, all naïveté. "Perhaps she's turned into a cat and we've never realized. I have cats of many ages. And colors!"

She beams brightly in the face of their blank stares.

"Still a child," the fishmonger says. "Ten or eleven years. Likely to be brunette, as well; the prince and his wife are, at any rate." He lets out a low whistle. "If you want the real thing and the girl's got her mother's looks, she shouldn't be hard to spot."

The barmaid rolls her eyes. "That _would_ be what you think of-"

"If you'd seen the lady _you'd_ be thinking of it too, Minnie, I'll lay coin you would."

The butcher perks up at this. "She would?"

The barmaid smacks him again.

"Point being," the fishmonger continues, "there's no reason to waste your time looking for the princess when any dark-haired, dark-eyed girl will do. They've no real notion what she looks like. She'll be raised a royal, I'll get the gold. Girl's happy, parents are happy, _I'm_ sure as hell happy."

Belle forces her smile wider, a muscle spasming in her cheek. "And what is the princess called?"

The fishmonger scratches his chin. "Something with an R. Does it matter? Tell them the demon gave her another name. Simple."

The discussion continues - mostly along the lines of how the fishmonger seems determined to get himself executed, a risk he insists is worth the chance for a sack of pure gold - but Belle is only listening with half an ear. She finishes her meager breakfast, leaves a coin on the table, and wanders from the bustling village, nearly walking into many townsfolk in her distraction.

There must thousands upon thousands of dark-haired girls in this world who have no parents. Who are ten or eleven years old. Whose names begin with R.

Who live with demons.

Surely there must be.

Belle's trip back to the Dark Castle - she still climbs the mountain with absurd ease, as though she travels along a gravel road instead of a steep dirt path - is achieved by muscle memory alone. She crosses the grounds with no notice of the trees, opens the doors without seeing them, sets the straw by the spinning wheel without a word, and stands in the vacant great room, considering her options.

Her head tells her not to put stock in ale house gossip.

Her heart tells her any answer will injure those involved.

Her curiosity tells her to discover the truth.

As usual, curiosity wins.

High, high in Rumpelstiltskin's tower, Belle finds the Dark One and his apprentice hard at work on transference spells. "No," he says, voice rasping the way Belle has learned it does when he's frustrated and - as he does on occasion! - trying to hide it. "The quill on the _table_."

"But _why?_" Regina is already holding a quill; she waves the feather right under the Dark One's nose, causing him to flinch back. "I made one. I don't need the other."

"Conjuration is no substitute for transference. _Your_ quill isn't enchanted; what if the one over there was?"

"But it's _not_ enchanted."

"If it was-"

"But it's _not_."

"You are _deliberately_ missing the point, whelp, and if you keep that up you're going to-" Rumpelstiltskin cuts off what looks to be a promising dress-down when Belle lets her heel click very deliberately against the tile floor. "Something you need, dearie?" he asks, ashen brows rising. "Girl's still mine till noon, you know."

Regina ignores this and turns to Belle pleadingly. "Oh, _tell_ him, Belle. I don't need a stupid transference spell when I can _make_ one of whatever I need!"

"There are about fifty reasons you're wrong in that, not the _least_ of which is that the cost is far too high."

"Yes, yes, all magic comes with a price, but I can _do_ it! Belle, tell him!"

"Belle, feel free inform this brat that when _she's_ been casting magic for three hundred years she's more than welcome to lecture children on what the proper _price_ of magic is, but until that day comes she will listen to those who are both older and _unfathomably_ wiser than her."

"That's not fair!"

"_Life's_ not fair, dearie."

"Rumpelstiltskin," says Belle, "may I speak to you privately?"

There is nothing different in her tone or expression - at least, not that she knows of or intends - but her words bring the argument between master and student to an immediate halt. Rumpelstiltskin straightens, his ever-hectic hands stilling; Regina's eyes widen. "I didn't do it," she says quickly. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

"Out," Rumpelstiltskin tells her.

"But I _didn't!_ I really didn't this time!"

"_Out_. Now."

Regina stomps down the spiral staircase, muttering to herself, locks of hair escaping every which way with each step, until she vanishes from sight and the heavy oaken door slams. Belle fully expects to find pranks galore when she returns downstairs; she only prays the mice will still be their appropriate sizes, if nothing else.

"Now, then," says Rumpelstiltskin, his fingers steepled together in front of his chest. "What's put that look on your face, little maid?"

"I have a look?"

"Quite a serious one, yes, and it doesn't suit you at all. Who has upset you, and how would you like me to stage his death?"

"No one," says Belle at once. In all likelihood he is joking, but... well, better not to risk it. "N-no one has... that is..."

Now that the moment has arrived, her nerve is failing her. Perhaps she ought not ask. Perhaps it is none of her business. Perhaps, just this once, ignorance is bliss.

She doesn't realize that Rumpelstiltskin has approached until his hands come to rest on her shoulders, a warm and surprisingly heavy weight. "Belle," he murmurs, and she can smell cloves and magic on his skin, he must need the cloves for a potion because she certainly doesn't cook with them, and his nose would brush hers if he would lean forward another few inches. He looks so _human_ this close. "What troubles you?"

She swallows, and he can probably hear it. He may even be able to feel it, in that his thumbs trace along the bare skin of her shoulders in something very close to but not quite a caress. She bites her lip, and his eyes drop to her mouth.

The moment holds, grows, shapes into something new and a bit alarming. Belle does not want it to end.

But end it must. "Rumpelstiltskin," she says softly, and she is fairly certain she's not imagining the shudder that runs through his body when she speaks his name, "where did Regina come from?"

He freezes.

A moment later Rumpelstiltskin is on the other side of the room, the potions table between them, as though his fingers hadn't just been brushing across her collarbone. "Did no one give you that speech when you were a lass, dearie?" he asks liltingly, hands dancing along a neat row of glass vials. "If not, that library of mine surely has an _enlightening_ book or two. Educate yourself."

"I _meant_, how did you come by her."

"I bought her for a sack of radishes. Not one of my better deals, but I've made do as best I can. Now send her back up here and go find something to polish."

"Rumple, I'm serious."

"So am I, little maid. Those cobwebs on the third floor aren't going to clean themselves."

"Please, listen to me." _Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow._ "Down in the village there are people searching for a lost princess."

Rumpelstiltskin looks up at this, the hardness on his face replaced with genuine surprise. "There are?"

"Yes." Belle comes forward, close enough to rest her palms against the work table. "They said she was stolen by a... a _demon_ more than ten years ago. That she likely has dark hair and dark eyes. That her first name begins with _R_. There's an offer of one hundred gold coins for her return, and- and proof of the demon's death. Rumple..."

But she finds she cannot continue when she sees how his clawed nails are scoring the tabletop, leaving deep grooves behind in the solid wood. "Stolen," he repeats. "They've told the world she was _stolen_."

Any remaining hope that Regina is not the princess they spoke of vanish at his words. "Y-yes. That's what they're saying."

And, in one powerful motion, the Dark One upends the work table. Jars and bowls and vials go flying to smash against the far wall; Belle jumps back with a cry. "_Stolen!_" he roars. "She would say- she would _dare!-_"

"Sh-she?"

The second table crashes to the side; multi-colored steam rises where the bottles shatter. "That - _evil_ - soul!"

"Who are you talking about?"

"She wants proof of _my_ death? _She thinks she can defeat me?_"

"Rumple, _stop it!_" If he keeps this up he'll destroy all the magic in this tower and heavens know what the consequences could be. "Please, stop before you hurt yourself - or me!"

Rumpelstiltskin pauses moments before he shatters the multi-paned window. "Well, we can't have that, can we," he says stiffly. His arms drop to his sides, though the lines of his body continue to radiate barely leashed rage.

Belle has the sense to wait for a few minutes; it's clear he would rather she leave entirely, but she's not going to do that, not now. After he seems at least somewhat calmer - one of the tables raises and reassembles itself with a flourish of his hand - she hesitantly offers: "It _is_ Regina that they're searching for, then?"

"Likely so." The laugh that follows is low and bitter. "And what about _you_, dearie? Will you play the hero, and return the kidnapped babe to her rightful place? Have you already spent the promised gold?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Belle snaps. "And don't start suspecting _me_ just because you're angry at someone else - isn't fair."

He takes a deep breath, and his shoulders slump. "No, it isn't." The note of regret in his tone would have shocked her a season ago; now she accepts it. Perhaps he cannot yet govern his tongue when he is in a temper, but he at least knows when he has wronged her. "You are not- you _would_ not. Not _you_. I apologize, Belle."

She'd touch his arm to convey her forgiveness, but this isn't the time. "What will you do?"

"_Do?_ I needn't _do_ anything. That child has belonged to me since before her grandfather was a glimmer in his father's eye. Her _mother_-" he spits the word as though it stings his tongue "-may harbor delusions of her retrieval, but that's all they are. Delusions. If she tries to take the girl from me, she'll remember just _who it is_ she's made a deal with."

This subject is a minefield, and Belle is navigating without a map. Still, it falls under the category of looking out for her charge. "Perhaps... perhaps if Regina were only to _write_ to her family, they would be satisfied in her safety-"

"Don't waste your time, dearie. I assure you: whatever Cora is playing at, the girl's _safety_ has nothing to do with it."

Cora, then. Regina's mother's name is Cora. "But if she hasn't seen her daughter since she was a baby, she _must_ be worried."

_Now_ Rumpelstiltskin turns to face her, and his black eyes hold some unholy combination of awe, condescension, and disgust. "Always looking for good where there is none, little maid," he murmurs, and it's _almost_ admiring, _almost_ patronizing, but not quite either. "Regina's mother sold her to me for a pile of gold. She's not the first, but she's the first who didn't regret it. She didn't _care_. Would you like to tell Regina that before she writes? How her mother wouldn't even look at her when she wailed for milk?"

Belle shakes her head, slowly. "That can't be true," she whispers. "She couldn't be that heartless."

His laughter sounds as sick as she feels. "Oh, my little maid, you have _no_ idea."

This is too much to process at once. Belle can feel herself getting a headache, though that may be from the remaining fumes of the spilled elixirs. "Then Regina is- is not yours, then."

"Of course she is. That's the whole _point_ of the deal."

"No, I mean... you are not her father."

Before this moment, Belle had had no idea that Rumpelstiltskin's scaled, pebbled skin could turn pale. Rumpelstiltskin's face does not drain white as her own would, but instead becomes a shade of sickly gray, nearly translucent. He swallows. "No," he says after a moment, as though the single syllable has been hooked in his chest and brutally torn out. "I am not."

"Oh." Belle traces the wood grain of the table with her index finger. "If that is true, then... well, you must speak to her." He blinks, and she explains: "She believes you are. At least, I think she does. You need to tell her."

His expression is eerily similar to the one he'd had the time she slapped him. He says nothing.

And Belle quickly realizes what he's about to do. "Oh, _no_. Don't even think about-"

Too late. "You're here to manage that girl, dearie," he says, then disappears in an eyeblink, as though he's never been there at all, leaving Belle in an empty tower, surrounded by broken glass and spilled drafts and scattered books.

"Rumpelstiltskin!" she shouts. "Come back here this instant!"

No response.

"You _coward!_ Don't you _dare_ leave this to me!"

Nothing.

"I _won't do it!_ Do you hear me? _I won't!_ This is _your_ responsibility, not mine! _Rumpelstiltskin!_"

Silence.

By the time Belle leaves the tower, there is even more broken glass on the floor than when she arrived.

* * *

_**Next**: Wherein everyone makes a lot of mistakes._


End file.
